










'li 


ji! 




1 


ll i 


1 

■5 


!- 


1 




yi 


{i i 


i|>!' 


Ivi:;. 




1 


1 


'hi 


1 !:i! 




1 


k 


# 


L 


iiiMi 



Mi.::,ir^:i :M:! 



i)!;'iil 



Hill 

;.'<t(|i<: 

liiilll 



iii 



.i:l;;l 



liii'iiiiJ 



'::'''! ^Ifl 



iii: 



mmk\ 



l^iitel 




Book XiUiT 



COEXRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE EAGLE LIFE 
Kev. J. H. JOWETT, D.D. 



THE EAGLE LIFE 

AND OTHER STUDIES IN 
JHE OLD TESTAMENT 

Rev. Ji H. JOWETT, d.d. 

Author of "Brooks by the Traveller's Way," "The Preacher," 
"The Friend on the Road," etc. 




NEW XBJr YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



/ 



.U 



^V'^ 






COPYRIGHT^ 1922, 
BY GEORGE H, DORAN COMPANY 



. V'^^. 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



MAR29tt 



0)C1.A659391 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAeS 

I THE BROODING SPIRIT 11 

II THE BLESSING OF A CURSE .... 15 

HI BACK TO THE EARLY ALTAR .... 19 

IV THE BLIND SPOT 22 

V VISITING THE GREAT YESTERDAYS . . 25 

VI KEEPING IN TUNE ....... 28 

Vn THE SIN OF FORGETFL'LNESS .... 31 

VIII THE SCHOOL OF HUNGER 33 

IX THE CONTAGION OF FAINT-HEARTEDNESS 36 

X CLEAN FIGHTERS 40 

XI THE MEN OF MIGHTY DAYS .... 44 

Xn THE BALANCES OF GOD 47 

XIII THE SIN OF PRAYERLESSNESS . . . . 51 

XIV THE EYES OF THE LORD ..... 53 
XV LARGENESS OF HEART ...... 56 

XVI FIRST AID 59 

XVII THE INVISIBLE FORCES . . . . . 62 

XVm STRENGTHENING THE HANDS .... 65 

XIX THE NOBLEST CONQUEST 68 

V 



yi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGB 

XX THE BLAST OF BURNING ..... 71 

XXI SILKEN STRINGS AND CART-ROPES . . 74 

XXn THE DIVINE SIDE OF THINGS .... 77 

XXIII GLORY EVERYWHERE 81 

XXIV A MISSING HAND 83 

XXV THE LIFE THAT HAS NO MORNING . . 86 

XXVI THE VALLEY OF VISION . . . . . 89 

XXVII COMPENSATIONS .... . -.- • 92 

XXVIII THE MYSTERIOUS SWORD ..... 95 

XXIX THE TRANSFORMED DESERT .... 98 

XXX THE SONGS OF THE ROAD ..... 102 

XXXI THE EAGLE LIFE 105 

XXXn LIKE THE WAVES 109 

XXXm THE DIVINE MINISTRY OF DISPLACEMENT 112 

XXXIV THE GAZE OF THE QUESTIONER . . . 116 

XXXV THE ALMOND TREE . 119 

XXXVI FIXEDNESS OF CHARACTER . . . . 123 

XXXVII THE MAKING OF HEROES . . . . . 126 

XXXVIII IRREVERENT FEAR . . . . .^ r.^ . 129 

XXXIX LITTLE-MINDEDNESS . . .^ . . . 133 

XL WEEK-DAY HOLINESS . . . . . . 137 

XLI ON THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF . . . . 140 

XLH BAFFLED TO FIGHT BETTER . .' .^ . 144 



CONTENTS 



vu 



CHAPTER PAG5 

XLm OE rather! • . . 146 

XLIV SLOW WALKING 149 

XLV THE EAGLE LIFE 152 

XLVI THE STRENGTH OP THE INSIGNIFICANT . 155 

XLVn DUNGEONED HEARTS 158 

XLVm THE SOUND SLEEP OF COWARDICE • . 161 



THE EAGLE LIFE 



THE EAGLE LIFE 



THE BROODING SPIRIT 

''And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters." 

Gen. i. 2. 

Some time ago, out on the Atlantic, far 
beyond the sight of land, I saw a cloud whose 
outlines took the form of a great bird. Its 
mighty wings were stretched out so as to 
touch the two horizons, and it seemed like a 
mother-bird brooding over the entire deep. 
I recalled the word in Genesis which I have 
written above, and the marvellous cloud be- 
came to me a symbol of the most real but 
invisible presence of the Lord brooding over 
the varied waters of human life. For, in- 
deed, that is the eternal yearning of the 

mother-heart of God, brooding over all its 

11 



12 THE EAGLE LIFE 

circumstances, without and within, and to 
impress everything with the mystic virtues 
of the Divine breast. 

The Divine Spirit would brood over the 
dancing, frolicsome waters of our joys. And 
it is the miracle of grace that when the Lord 
countenances a joy it is strangely enhanced. 
He adds sunshine to daylight. He trans- 
mutes happiness into blessedness. He en- 
dows our delights with heavenly virtue. The 
joy of the Lord becomes our strength. No 
one has ever tasted really superlative joy 
until there has brooded over his gladness the 
transforming and beautifying Spirit of God. 

And He will brood over our labour when 
we are doing our daily business in great 
waters. He delights to glorify the common 
lot and common toil. It is His purpose to 
hallow the commonplace, the vast world of 
the ordinary in which we earn our daily 
bread. In ^^The Angelus,'' in which Millet 
pictures two peasants, man and woman, 
standing with bowed heads as the bells of 
evening send across the fields the call to 
prayer, the painter has thrown a softening 
light not only upon the humble worshippers, 



THE BROODING SPIRIT 13 

but also upon the spade and wheelbarrow, 
the common implements of their toil. And 
that is right ; the Light of Life will illumine 
the means by which we earn our bread and 
thereby transform them into a means of 
grace. When the Great Spirit broods over 
our business it becomes our Father's busi- 
ness. 

And He will brood over the waters of our 
sorrows. Sometimes these waters roar and 
are troubled, and many precious things in 
our lives ^^ shake with the swelling thereof.'' 
'But the brooding Spirit will give us rest 
when ^^all without tumultuous seems." We 
may have the refuge of His bosom ^^ while 
the nearer waters roll, while the tempest 
still is high." The waters can do us no hurt 
so long as we are resting against the bosom 
of God. 

And the same great Spirit will brood over 
the waters of death. Those waters reveal 
themselves in different ways to different pil- 
grims. Sometimes they are very high and 
overflow their banks. Sometimes they are 
so shallow that one can almost go over dry 
shod. But whether the floods are out, or the 



14 THE EAGLE LIFE 

passage is almost dry, the faithful Spirit 
broods upon the waters and the soul is kept 
in perfect peace. 

"Wten I tread the verge of Jordan 
Bid my anxious fears subside, 
Bear me through the swelling current, 
Land me safe on Canaan's side.'' 



n 

THE BLESSING OF A CURSE 

"Cursed is the ground for thy sake/' 

Gen. iii. 17, 

*^ Cursed is the ground!" Yes, but who has 
not realised the blessing which is hidden in 
the curse? God laid restrictions upon the 
land in order that, by the means of the re- 
striction, man might be helped to recover his 
freedom. Man had fallen by disobedience. 
His relationship with God was perverted. 
He was afflicted with spiritual crookedness. 
How to recover his straightness, his recti- 
tude — ^that was the problem. It could only 
be done by the wonderful ministry of the 
boundless grace of God. And yet that grace 
not only works upon the soul in direct and 
immediate constraints; it also works in- 
directly and mediately in a thousand dif- 
ferent appointments. For one thing it curses 
the ground, so that the ground holds its har- 
vests in bonds until they are released by 

15 



16 THE EAGLE LIFE 

human toil. And so labour becomes impera- 
tive, and man has to work for his living, and 
his labour is the medium of divine grace. 
The ground is cursed so that the man may 
be blessed. His very toil is purposed to be 
the helpmeet of his salvation. When he 
works for a living his work is to aid him in 
the recovery of a life. And who has not 
tasted this blessing, which was thus en- 
shrined in a curse ? Honest labour is the an- 
tagonist of many a vile foe, and it drains 
away many a bad humour from the soul. 
^^What a blessing it was I had some work 
to do!^^ That is the thankful utterance of 
millions of people, and they are finding their 
blessing in an original curse. The ground 
was cursed for their sake. 

And how is it with the sorrows which 
sometimes leap upon us like lions from the 
thicket? We are dazed by the attack. Our 
united life was so sweet and simple ; it was 
fragrant and lovely as a garden. And then 
death swooped down upon us, and the garden 
became an open grave. Nay, the entire world 
seemed to be smiten with the gloom of the 
tomb, and all our ways were darkened. But 
grace broke through the gloom. The Lord 



THE BLESSING OF A CURSE 17 

was in the stricken garden. Angel presences 
whispered of resurrection. Yes, and there 
was another helper when everything seemed 
to be shaking. "We had our work. ^^I don't 
know what I should have done if I had had 
nothing to do ! " No, poor soul ! but thy labour 
was a means of grace, and it steadied thy 
powers in days and nights of confusion. 
Yes, thy very toil was a sort of angel pres- 
ence, and it was purposed to brace and 
hearten the pilgrim of the night. And so it 
is, we find our blessing in the primary curse. 
Our harvest rises in the wilderness. ' ' Cursed 
is the ground for thy sake.'' 

And all this is a revelation of the wonder- 
ful love of God. The clouds we so much 
dread are big with blessing. *^Out of the 
eater comes forth meat, and out of the strong 
comes forth sweetness." God laid upon us 
the burden of toil lest we should be corrupted 
by indolence into deeper degradation. For 
it is true indeed that Satan finds some mis- 
chief still for idle hands to do. Idleness be- 
friends disobedience. It relaxes all our pow- 
ers by swathing the soul in a soft and soften- 
ing atmosphere of enervation. That is why 
men who retire too early from business 



18 THE EAGLE LIFE 

speedily go to pieces. They have lost some- 
thing vital. They have dismissed one of 
life's angels, and the tonic has gone from 
their roads. 

Let us thank God for the blessing of la- 
hour. Let us praise Him for all restrictions 
which demand our toil. Let us be grateful 
for the ground that was cursed. In working 
to release the energies of the earth we help 
our own emancipation. 



Ill 

BACK TD THE EAELY ALTAR 

"And he went on his way to Bethel . . . unto the 
place of the altar, which he had made there at the first." 

Gen. xiii. 3-4. 

And that follows a dark chapter in the pa- 
triarch's life. It is a period stained by de- 
liberate falsehood and deceit. It has been a 
time of increasing wealth, but decreasing 
piety. In this season there is no mention of 
any altar-building, as, indeed, there is no 
mention of the name of God. It is a sterile 
page of history, and it finishes up with the 
believer being rebuked by the heathen, and 
practically dismissed the country. And now 
we see him on his return, much increased in 
goods, but surely with the sense of something 
lacking, for which his possessions afford no 
recompense. And he makes his way to 
Bethel, ^^unto the place of the altar, which 
he had made there at the first." And there 
he sought to get hold of the broken ends of 
his life, to recover what he had lost, and in 

19 



20 THE EAGLE LIFE 

the genius of the place, and in the reawaken- 
ing of sleeping sentiment, to walk anew in 
the fellowship of God. 

Well, it may be or it may not be our lot to 
be trudging through a period of shame. Per- 
haps we have gone to pieces in other ways. 
Somehow we may have got away from the 
only things that really matter, and we have 
been narcotised by the world, and we have 
been scarcely conscious of our loss. Or per- 
haps the tragedy of our time, the universal 
convulsion, has shaken us out of our sleep, 
and a vital craving has arisen for a nobler 
life. What shall we do ? The one thing to 
do is to make our way to a deserted altar, 
some revered altar of our earlier days. And, 
first of all, let us hasten away to the supreme 
altar, from which all other altars get their 
fire and virtue; let us hasten to the Cross, 
that altar of superlative and incomparably 
lonely sacrifice. Let us take our pilgrimage 
there, with our burdens upon our backs, and 
when we get to that first altar we shall share 
the experience of Christian, and the burden 
will be loosed from off our shoulders and 
will roll away into a sepulchre, from which 
it will never rise again. *^At the Cross, at 



BACK TO THE EARLY ALTAR 21 

the Cross, where I first saw the light, and the 
burden of my heart rolled away.'^ 

And let us get back to the altar of early 
consecration. It would be a blessed thing 
to visit the very spot where we made our 
first spiritual vows, to go to the little village 
church, to sit in the old pew, and under the 
influence of sacred memories renew our 
covenant with the Lord. ^^I will renew my 
vows unto Thee, O God. ' ' And we must visit 
the altar of early loyalties, for we have lost 
our first love. We must seek to regain the 
constancy of our early communion with the 
Lord. We must renew our tryst with Him 
in private prayer, and in family prayer, and 
in public worship and in Christian service. 
We must get back and rebuild these first 
altars. Nay, it will not be going back — it will 
be going forward, upward, and in our glor- 
ious recovery of abandoned treasure we shall 
sing with the woman of old, ^^ Rejoice with 
me, for I have found that which was losf 



IV 

TKE BLIND SPOT 

"And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, 
which come of the giants, and we were in our own 
sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." 

Num. xiii. 33. 

That was an inventory with the main fact 
omitted. It was an estimate which left out 
God. These explorers moved in the world 
of things which are seen ; they never sallied 
forth, on venturous quest, into the realm of 
the unseen. Indeed, to them the unseen 
world did not exist. Spiritual presences and 
forces were disregarded in their count. They 
were not even named. They saw nothing but 
physical giants, and they were dismayed. 

It has been charged against William Pitt 
that he did not comprehend the Revolution in 
France. '^He saw his enemy; he did not see 
his allies.'' It is a significant criticism, and 
its application is far wider than the field of 
European politics. The same defect of 
vision may be found among men and women 

22 



THE BLIND SPOT 2S 

who sincerely profess their concern for the 
Kingdom of God. They see the enemy ; they 
do not see their allies. They see the giants, 
but they do not see the Lord; nor do they 
catch a glimpse of the mighty but secret 
forces which follow His command. 

And this imperfect vision, this blindness 
to the friendly allies, breeds the mood of 
pessimism. We become possessed by an ex- 
cessive and debilitating self-depreciation. 
'^We are in our own sight as grasshoppers.'' 
We feel no more competent to capture the 
enemy's citadel than a grasshopper is able 
to subdue a fort. Spiritual pessimism is the 
parent of moral paralysis. Nothing so saps 
our fighting power as the apprehension that 
we are sure to be beaten. The will eventually 
softens if it breathes the air of despair. If 
we estimate the combatants as ^^grasshopper 
versus giant" we are undone. 

And therefore it is of vital importance that 
we cultivate the spiritual sight which gives 
reality to the unseen world. There is a mys- 
tical food which is gathered from harvests 
that grow on heavenly fields. Our spirits 
are fed on spiritual things, and they find 
their strength in the bread of life. Heavenly 



24 THE EAGLE LIFE 

manna is the food of heroes. Courage is the 
product of grace. Indeed, all our virtues 
draw their vigour from spiritual breasts. 
If we cut ourselves away from ^^the things 
which are not seen,'^ we break communion 
with our spiritual supplies, and all our pow- 
ers will become anaemic, we shall lack ade- 
quate resource, and when the giant appears 
we shall surely faint. When the spirit faints 
the end has come ! 

But pre-eminently, when we see the giants, 
we must swiftly turn the eyes of the soul 
upon the Lord. If we are dismayed by a 
king let us fix our gaze upon the King of 
Kings. The mighty Friend will give us con- 
fidence to meet the foe. ^^The Lord is my 
light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? 
The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom 
shall I be afraid?'^ 



VISITING THE GREAT YESTERDAYS 

^'Ask now of the days that are past." 

Deut. iv. 32. 

Yes, but what shall we ask about, and what 
kind of spoil shall we bring back from the 
treasures of the past ? What have we in our 
purses or in our wallets when we return. In 
the ^^Life of Lord John EusselP^ I came 
upon a phrase which set me inquiring about 
my own habits. In a speech which he made 
in the House of Commons he said: ^^We talk 
too much, I think a great deal too much, of 
the wisdom of our ancestors. I wish we could 
imbibe the courage of our ancestors.'' 

It is a very suggestive word, and one which 
may justly lead us to overhaul our waysi 
For it too often happens that when we go 
seeking for the wisdom of the past we bring 
back its prudence and reluctance. We go 
for counsel and we return with caution. We 
seek advice on our own new outlook and 

25 



26 THE EAGLE LIFE 

then we stand in the ' ' good old ways. ' ' Now 
suppose we take Lord John Russell's sug- 
gestion, and visit our ancestors in order that 
we may imbibe their courage, what sort of 
courage should we bring back to the new 
demands of our own time ? 

Well, first of all, I think we should have 
courage to make new trails over untrodden 
country. That was one of their most shining 
characteristics. They were not afraid to 
break new ground. They would even obey 
the grip of the dumb imperative, not seeing 
the distant scene. They went forth, ^^not 
knowing whither they went. ' ' They were not 
afraid to take risks with God. They were 
not afraid to be pioneers into more scrupu- 
lous rectitude and larger freedom. They 
marched out, with trumpets blowing, over 
the roadless moors, trusting to the guidance 
of the Lord they served. And we, too, are 
face to face with untraversed country. We 
have new ground to break. The wilderness is 
before us, but we think we hear the call of 
the garden in the very realm of the desert! 
Shall we venture? Let us imbibe the cour- 
age of our ancestors and dare to leave their 



VISITING THE GREAT YESTERDAYS 27 

ways behind as they left the ways of those 
who had gone before. 

If we drink the valour of our ancestors 
we shall have courage to stand by the Truth 
even when the crowd has gone another way. 
We can go to the past and talk with Mr. 
Worldly- Wiseman, or we can have fellow- 
ship with Mr. Valiant-for-the-Truth. Mr. 
Worldly- Wiseman is always in favour of 
safe measures, and he would go with the ma- 
jority in the hope of something turning up — 
*^you never know what!" His offered ^^ wis- 
dom" is always small prudence and compro- 
mise. But we need the courage of our great 
ancestors, courage to march with Truth in 
little companies, courage to ^^ rejoice with 
the truth," in the absolute assurance that, in 
spite of all appearances, she marches to in- 
evitable triumph. It is the courage which 
believes that Truth is God^s leaven of the 
Kingdom, and therefore indestructible. 

And we must imbibe the courage that sees 
the Captain, and is comparatively careless 
about everything else. Where is the Lord 
Jesus Christ in this business ? There ! Then 
forward into hardships, forward into light ! 



way" 



YI 

KEEPING IN TXJNE 

"Thou shalt talk of them when thou walkest by the 

Deut. vi. 7. 

He was not to be satisfied with stated and 
formal times of meditation when his mind 
was to reverently consider the law of the 
Lord. He was to use his own moments in 
quest of the divine treasure, and he was 
to nourish the divine communion in his or- 
dinary converse as he walked along the way. 
He was not only to consecrate the larger sea- 
sons, when he would tune his instrument, he 
was to give it devoted attention whenever his 
circumstances provided an opening. And 
that, I think, is most needed counsel in the 
culture of the soul. We not only need the 
prolonged times of praise, but also the short 
swallow-flights of song. We want the lei- 
surely communion, but we also want the 
sharp ejaculation which expresses itself in a 

28 



KEEPING IN TUNE 29 

single word. We need the long gaze at our 
Lord, and we need the frequent glance. 

I have been told that Mr. Chase, the great 
American artist who recently passed to his 
rest, was in the habit of carrying about in his 
pocket small objects which he enjoyed look- 
ing at — an exquisite ring or some rarely 
attractive curiosity. He had his long seasons 
of studious contemplation of the loveliness 
that he yearned to capture in line and colour. 
But he had also moments of gazing when he 
turned his eyes on some beautiful thing. 
And we may follow his plan in the deepest 
things of the spirit. We can carry a divine 
signet ring about with us. We can carry 
with us through the day some great word of 
glorious revelation, and at odd moments we 
can bring it out and look into the depths of 
its eternal beauty. What is to prevent the 
busiest among us having some rich promise 
of grace which we can bring out and look at 
as we walk by the way? Perhaps we de- 
pend too much on the large and formal occa- 
sions, and we undervalue the ordinary times 
which stretch between these more dignified 
seasons, and which might be broken up into 
short and occasional glances at the treasures 



30 THE EAGLE LIFE 

of the King. There are things we can ponder 
as we bow in the Temple ; there are lovely 
things we can look at as we go along the road. 
Every literary student knows how much 
it helps in the acquisition and retention of a 
strong and sensitive English style to have 
a few great classical passages in the memory 
to which we can turn again and again, and 
so keep his own instincts and powers in tune 
with the orderly march and music of the 
masters. And so it is with the great styles 
of the soul, the grand manners of living, the 
revealed glory of the accepted children of 
God. Cannot we carry a little of their style 
with us? Cannot we snatch a glance at 
them as we go along the road? Cannot we 
sing a bit of one of their songs? Yes, we 
can do all this, and there will come a little 
rift in our grey sky and a beam of the eter- 
nal light will stream upon our way and 
transform a commonplace road into the 
highway of our God. 



vn 

THE SIN ^F FOKGETFTJLNESS 

'^Wlien thou hast eaten, and art full, then beware 
lest thou forget the Lord thy God." 

Deut. vi. 11, 12. 

Fulness is apt to breed forgetfulness. 
The multitude of our mercies may act like 
an opiate and make us heedless toward God. 
This is one of our subtlest perils. The bright 
day puts us to sleep. There are ten who can 
keep awake in the Valley of Humiliation, 
with Apollyon in fierce antagonism, to one 
who can keep awake on the Enchanted 
Ground, where the antagonism is found in 
the rarity of the air and the softness of the 
encompassing light. It is the luxuriant isle 
which becomes our Lotus-land. We were 
all alert when we were driven by the sting- 
ing blast, and were in danger of the engulfing 
deep. And thus it is true that the bright day 
brings forth the adder. A possible poison 
lurks in our comforts. We are most in dan- 
ger when we have no need. When we have 

31 



32 THE EAGLE LIFE 

everything we want we are in danger of 
losing God. 

And so does the Old Testament bid us 
^^ beware'^; and so does tbe New Testament 
bid us ^^ watch/ ^ The sentinel of the soul 
must be continually on guard, and ne^r 
more so than when the battle seems to be 
over, and life has become a feast. Our wills 
must be exercised in deliberate vigilance 
when we have left the desert behind and have 
crossed into Canaan. We must open our 
eyes in resolute purpose to see the seal of the 
Lord on the mercies which crowd our way. 
No divine privilege must be allowed to pass 
as a personal right On the forehead of 
every providence we must read the name of 
the Lord. This must be our wonder: 
*^When all Thy mercies, O my God, my ris- 
ing soul surveys ! ' ' And that healthy wonder 
will ever be accompanied by the spirit of 
praise. Then will the songs of battle be sung 
again at the feast. 



VIII 

THE SCHOOL OF HTJISTGEK 

"I led thee and suffered thee to hunger ... to teach 
thee that man shall not live by bread alone." 

Deut. viii. 3. 

What a strange school is this school of 
hunger! We are led into the discipline of 
deprivation in order that we may know the 
relative values of things. We discover the 
true place of a thing when it is taken from 
us. Once it seemed to occupy the front rank, 
to be one of the primaries of life ; and when 
it was removed we found something else in 
the chief seat, and the missing thing was seen 
in a secondary place. The material slips 
away in order that the spiritual may be 
revealed. We lose a princeling in order that 
we may find a king. ^^In the year that 
Uzziah died / saw the Lord!^^ Even in the 
school of bereavement we come upon the 
Lord of life. 

And this, too, is another lesson in the 

33 



34 THE EAGLE LIFE 

school of deprivation: — ^^^I suffered thee to 
be deprived of success to teach thee that man 
does not live by success alone. '^ We live by 
disappointment as well as by attainment. 
Nay, in our disappointments we can gain 
finer attainments. The cloudless skies make 
a Sahara. It is the strangely mingled weath- 
er, with its dulness and cold, searching mists 
and rains, which makes ^^ England's green 
and pleasant land.'' We cannot live by suc- 
cess alone. Success alone would make us 
hard and dry. We need the softening min- 
istry of disappointment. We need the en- 
larging ministry of failure. We need the 
mysterious tonic of defeat. 

And this, too, is a lesson taught in the 
school of hunger: — ^^I suffered thee to be 
deprived of joy to teach thee that man doth 
not live by joy alone." We unduly exalt 
our feelings, and we come to think of ecsta- 
sies as the normal mood of a wholesome 
Christian life. We seek to live in happy 
feelings rather than in a righteous and stead- 
fast will. And so the bread of joy is taken 
away, and we are left to travel a piece of 
road in dry obedience. It is a lesson of infi- 
nite value — ^to faithfully walk the King's 



THE SCHOOL OF HUNGER 35 

road when we cannot hear the song of a soli- 
tary bird ! Man doth not live by happiness 
alone ; he lives in every changing moon, if 
only he is travelling toward the Holy City, 
intent on reaching its gates before the sun 
goes down. 



IX 

THE CONTAGION OF FAINT-HEARTEDNES8 

'What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? 
Let him go and return into his house lest his brethren's 
heart melt as his heart/' 

DEfUT. XX. 8. 

OuE moods are contagious, and they are 
swiftly contagious. Our words can act upon 
others like a bugle or they can act like a 
chilling, drizzling rain; so it is with our 
moods. Our deeds can be inspiring in lead- 
ership, or they can be the ministers of de- 
pression ; even so it is with our moods. Ourp 
settled temper is contagious even though it 
be silent. Our temperament is an energy 
and it is never at rest. Our very presences 
are influential, and their influence is active 
even when we only seem to be the passive 
receivers in an assembly and not the active 
leaders of the fellowship. Everybody makes 
a vital contribution, and our contribution 
may be like that of an iceberg drifting south 

36 



CONTAGION OF FAINT-HEARTEDNESS 37 

from polar seas and cMlling the air for miles 
around. 

All tMs is a commonplace in hmnan ex- 
perience. Who has not recognised the con- 
tagious influence of a mood or a tempera- 
ment ? For instance, the presence of a pessi- 
mist is always unfriendly to great ventures. 
He may say little or nothing, but his unglow- 
ing spirit lays an icy constraint upon every- 
body. The presence of Mr. Fearing always 
lowers the moral temperature, and so does 
that of Mr. Despondency and his daughter 
Miss Much-afraid. It is not that they say 
much, for they are often very reticent, but 
they rob the atmosphere of its inspiring 
vitality, and they tend to freeze all the genial 
currents of the soul. Who has not known 
1;heir influence? Who does not know the 
freezing influence of the Eev. Mr. Fearall 
whether at a wedding or a funeral? And 
who does not feel that there is damp stuff 
in the fire when he is present, and we are 
trying to kindle some noble and venture- 
some enterprise? And who does not know 
Deacon Flat-soul, as flat as some once lively 
liquid which has lost its effervescence ? What 
a business it is to keep exuberant when Flat- 



SB THE EAGLE LIFE 

soul is at the meeting and stays to the very 
end ! These moods are very contagious, and 
we have to bestir ourselves if we would keep 
immune. 

But are we responsible for our moods? 
Do they belong to a realm where our decrees 
do not run? Are we impotent before them? 
If we listen to some people we should assume 
that ill-moods are tyrannies which ought to 
excite nothing but pity, ^^ You see, it is my 
temperament!'' And when that is said it is 
thought that the explanation is complete and 
final. That is to say, we speak of tempera- 
ment as we speak of climates, and we regard 
the changing of a temperament as about as 
impossible as the warming of the Arctic 
circle or the cooling of the Equator. *^I am 
temperamentally faint-hearted!'' That is 
their climate, and they have to live in it to 
the end of their days. 

But temperament is not an unchangeable 
climate. Grace is not checked when it 
touches moods. If God's love can do any- 
thing it can change a man's spiritual climate. 
If we read the letters of the Apostle Paul, 
marking every instance which betokens a 
radical change of temperament, we shall be 



CONTAGION OF FAINT-HEARTEDNESS 29 

surprised how great is the number of wit- 
nesses. Of all things which God^s grace can 
bring into human life, none is more sure 
than the coming of sweetness and light. 
There is sweetness for bitterness, and lol 
the cynic becomes a saint. There is light for 
despondency, and lo ! the pessimist becomes 
a child of hope. 

So that if the faint-hearts are to return 
home, lest their contagion seize their fellows, 
let them return to the Lord, and He will 
change their f aint-heartedness into valorous 
strength. ^^When they saw the loldness of 
Peter ! ' ' Yes, and he was once a faint-heart, 
and he fainted in the day of adversity I 



m 

CLEAN FIGHTEKS 

"When thou goest forth in camp against thine 
enemies, then thou shalt keep thee from every evil 
thing." 

Dbut. xxiii. 9. 

There is sometliing more than conscience in 
tMs, something more than the imperious 
demands of rectitude. The fighting powers 
in life are concerned, the strength which is 
at our disposal when we go out to meet the 
foe. Every form of sin is hostile to my 
strength. I cannot harbour an unclean thing 
and preserve my fighting forces unimpaired. 
My sin is always on the side of my adversary, 
because it lessens my power of defence and 
aggression. It may sometimes seem as if 
an unclean thing really added to my re- 
sources. A little bit of trickery may appear 
to fill a perilous gap and complete a circle of 
defences which would otherwise be broken. 
Falsehood may sometimes seem to bring an- 
other regiment to my support, and with my 

40 



CLEAN FIGHTERS 41 

loins girded about with untruth I march out 
to meet the foe. 

All these appearances are delusive. The 
unclean thing is really robbing me even when 
it wears the guise of a benefactor. The devil 
can appear as an angel of light when his in- 
ward ministry is one of destructive fire. 
Sin is always a thief, and it is the sinner who 
is despoiled. Sin cometh not but for to 
steal, and to kill, and to destroy. Its decep- 
tions are tragically pathetic. It is like the 
jerry-builder who seeks to ensnare my inter- 
est in electric bells and a little greenhouse 
while all the time the drains are leaking and 
the walls of the house are not able to keep 
out the rain. Tha c is the way of sin. It gives 
me a plaything and assails my life. Always 
and everywhere sin robs me of my strength* 
^^My strength faileth because of my in- 
iquity.'^ 

So do I say that the evil thing in my ranks 
is really fighting on the side of my foe. That 
is true of the Church of Christ. When the 
Church of Christ marshals her forces against 
some national wrong her power is honey- 
combed by her own sin. During the great 
war we were able to reject men who were 



42 THE EAGLE LIFE 

physically inefficient, but we had no means of 
discerning the morally inefficient, the men 
of foul heart and defiled conscience, whose 
corruptions were eating away their central 
strength. And the church is immeasurably 
weakened by the sin which makes her one 
with the sins she assails. In everything in 
which she shares the nature of the enemy 
she so far offers him the victory. When the 
Church is like the world she loses the power 
to attack the world. Her kinship deprives 
her of her kingship. It is always her unlike- 
ness which ensures her triumph. When she 
is pure she is overwhelming. It is the un- 
clean things which throw her into sickness, 
and weakness, and sleep, and disaster. It is 
when she is fair as the moon, and clear as the 
sun, that she is terrible as an army with 
banners. 

And so the first necessity of a strong and 
happy warrior is that he has a clean heart. 
There must be nothing unlawful in our tents 
if we would be the victorious soldiers of the 
Lord. There must be nothing disloyal, no 
lurking treachery. A secret sin can ruin an 
otherwise noble campaign. The secret sin 
may appear to be comparatively innocent, 



CLEAN FIGHTERS 4S 

but that is part of the grim deception. We 
all know that a little bit of seemingly pardon- 
able f orgetfulness — say some carelessness in 
neglecting the pointing of a house — can be 
the precursor of a terrible disease. Blessed 
are the pure in heart! ^'Thou shalt keep 
thee from every evil thing." 



XI 

THE MEN OF MIGHTY DAYS 

"As thy days, so shall thy strength be/' 

Deut. xxxiii. 25. 

Walt Whitman has a great word in his 
eulogy of General Grant. He describes him 
as ^ ^ a man of mighty days, and equal to the 
days." The word is just a transcript of the 
divine promise. We are always purposed by 
our God to be more than a match for the 
largest circumstances, more than level with 
the vastest opportunity, more than adequate 
to the most exacting task. Mighty days are 
therefore days of royal privilege because 
they are days of promised power and endow- 
ment. ^^ Bliss was it in that day to be alive, 
but to be young was very heaven!" The 
day of convulsion is the day of our Lord. 
The fearfully unfamiliar task is a strange 
door into a new inheritance. Our impossible 
marks the very hour of grace. 
In the ^^ mighty days" we can unlock the 

44 



THE MEN OF MIGHTY DAYS 45 

mighty power of God. The background of 
every day is grace, and the more tremendous 
the day the more abounding is the grace. 
And therefore we can interpret our difficul- 
ties as the index of our resources. Our mis- 
sion betokens our capital in the bank, and 
we can draw upon ^ 'the unsearchable riches'^ 
to the last demand of our need. ''As thy 
days, so shall thy strength be.'' 

Then with God's mighty grace we can un- 
lock ourselves. If life were just a sunny 
picnic that was never broken up by fierce 
tempest, by thunder and lightning and pelt- 
ing rain, the greater part of our human re- 
sources would remain unused and concealed. 
It is in the mighty days that we discover 
ourselves. Latent gifts troop out of their 
graves. Buried seeds spring into vigorous 
life. We never thought we had it in us? 
The big struggle becomes not only our re- 
vealer, but also our unearther, and we put 
on strength and majesty like a robe. 

We are living through mighty days, and 
by God's good grace wx can be equal to the 
days. These are days of great unlockings, 
and we are having surprises on every side ! 
Young fellows who were regarded as milk- 



46 THE EAGLE LIFE 

sops are revealing themselves as iron pillars. 
Once-while selfish men are unveiling their 
spiritual wealth in glorious sacrifice. Wo- 
men who appeared to be living for nothing 
are giving their life like wine ! The ^ ^mighty 
days'' are upon us, and God is making us 
equal to the days. 



xn 

THE BALAN^CES OF GOD 

"God is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions 
are weighed." 

1 Sam. ii. 3. 

We are apt to measure things by their size 
and not by their weight We too often 
prefer the things which make the most show. 
We admire big things, and we are not deeply 
concerned with their essential content. And 
so we appreciate the Pharisee's loud-sound- 
ing offering more than the widow's mite. 
We are more attracted by swelling rhet- 
oric than by simple speech. We delight in 
the big canvas. We rejoice in pageants and 
demonstrations. Our admiration is usually 
determined by scale rather than by weight. 
But our God weighs things. He weighs 
our offerings, and He weighs them in His 
own spiritual scales, to see what spiritual 
significance there is in them. He weighs our 
money-gifts to ascertain their weight of sac- 
rifice. And so it comes to pass that the wid- 

47 



48 THE EAGLE LIFE 

ow's mite wins His praise rather than the 
rich man's abundance. He weighs our pray- 
ers to see what weight of holy desire there 
is in them. Prayers may be very long and 
very empty, and in the scales of God they are 
as light as the lightest chaff. In our prayers 
it is desire that weighs heavily, and peni- 
tence, and humility, and serious purpose of 
amendment. In our intercessions it is our 
self-forgetfulness that wins the favour of 
the Lord — our sacrifice in thoughtfulness, 
our true sympathj^, the burden of our 
brother's need. God weighs our joys, and it 
is our thankfulness which reveals its mighty 
presence in the scales. In the estimation of 
the Lord many things are very weighty 
which have no regard in the esteem of the 
world. 

It is the spiritual and the sacrificial which 
truly count in all things. Without these 
everything is light as vanity, however impos- 
ing the display it makes in the eyes of the 
world. 

^^Thou didst well it was in thine hearf 
Here is the Lord weighing an inner desire. 
David yearns to build a temple, and the 
yearning is not to be realised. But the gra- 



THE BALANCES OF GOD 49 

cious Lord puts the longing into His scales, 
and it is found to have the weight of a per- 
fected act. God does not wait for material 
creations, and then measure the value of our 
life by visible results. Our hungers are the 
vital part of our character, and a discerning 
judgment will estimate their force and in- 
tensity. ^^ Blessed are they that hunger!'' 
God weighs the inner things, the yearnings, 
the prayings, and the dreams. We measure 
only finished accomplishments. We revel 
in the dimensions of the temple which is 
built. God weighs the desire for a temple 
that was never built, and in His gracious 
judgment it has all the solidity of a temple 
made with hands. The man or the woman 
who longs to be a missionary, but whose 
yearnings cannot be realised, is counted as a 
missionary in the eyes of the Lord, and the 
will to do is reckoned as the deed done. 
*^Thou didst w^ell it was in thine heart.'' 

Here are rich men ostentatiously dropping 
their offerings into the temple treasury. 
How the temple officials rejoiced in the sen- 
sational gifts! How they sounded the 
praises abroad! And there came a poor 
widow, and she quietly left her offering for 



so THE EAGLE LIFE 

the Lord. Judged by measure it was next 
to nothing : when put into the scales of the 
Lord it outweighed all the other offerings 
put together. On a subscription list it would 
never have been noticed. Nay, it would 
never have been published at all, but it shone 
radiantly in the Lamb's book of life. The 
widow's service had in it something of Cal- 
vary, and the poor contributor was a blood- 
relation of the Lord. God weighs everything, 
and love-sacrifice is the heaviest thing in the 
world. 



xin 

THE SIN OF PRAYEKLESSNESS 

'^God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in 
ceasing to pray for you." 

1 Sam. xii. 24. 

How few of us have placed prayerlessness 
among our possible sins! And how even 
fewer have placed the omission to pray for 
others in the black list of sins against the 
holy Lord ! We have called it thoughtless- 
ness, or negligence, or even apathy, but we 
have not called it sin. But how this word 
sin, as used in this unfamiliar relationship, 
broadens and deepens the ministry and ob- 
ligation of prayer! My needy brother has 
a right to my prayers. They are to be re- 
garded as part of his capital strength. They 
constitute a part of the forces which were 
purposed to make him victorious in all the 
battle of life. My prayers for him are part 
of his army. I control some of his vital 
equipment. Without my co-operation in 

51 



52 THE EAGLE LIFE 

prayer lie is weakened and maimed. If I 
refuse him my prayers I deprive Mm of so 
much of his heritage. I defraud him. I 
wrong him in a far more deadly manner than 
if I refused to pay a material debt. I dis- 
claim my spiritual debts, and he is impov- 
erished in the central resources of the soul. 
I help him into moral bankruptcy by depriv- 
ing him of his sacred dues. Thus do I wrong 
my brother, and thus do I sin against God. 

All this, I say, is a very lofty conception 
of the obligation of prayer. It is something 
we owe to others, and if we refuse to pay 
we leave them poor indeed. On the other 
hand, how uplifting is the conception that 
by my prayers I am increasing a [man's 
moral capital. I am helping him to mobilise 
his spiritual forces. I am sending him army 
corps to enable him to meet his enemy at the 
gate and overthrow him. I may share in his 
warfare, and I may rejoice and glory in his 
triumph. 



XIV 

THE EYES OF THE LORD 

''The Lord seeth not as man seeth." 

1 Sam. xvi. 7. 

And how does the holy Lord look on things ? 
Have we any guidance as to what it is that 
distinguishes iHis sight from that of the 
children of men? Yes, certain hints have 
been given to us about the character of His 
discernment. Here is one. ^^Man looketh 
on the outward appearance, but the Lord 
looketh on the heart. ' ' The Lord's eyes sur- 
vey the secrets of the inner life. That great 
truth has frequently been taught as though 
it were only a fearful thing and clothed in 
unrelieved gloom. We have thought of those 
searching eyes as the eyes of a policeman 
and not the eyes of a lover. We have re- 
garded them as intent on looking for un- 
lovely things and not for things that are 
lovely. They are eyes of suspicion rather 
than of trust. They are dross-finders rather 

53 



54 THE EAGLE LIFE 

than gold-finders. And so the great truth 
has been perverted. Certainly there are as- 
pects of the truth which ought to move us to 
serious disquietude. But there are other as- 
pects which should inspire us with joy. The 
Lord looks upon the heart and He sees the 
hidden fault. But he also sees the precious 
things which He puts among His jewels. A 
poor widow drops a coin into the treasury 
and human observers see only a mite. But 
the Lord looks upon the heart and He sees 
untold millions in the gift. All the move- 
ments of the soul are known unto Him. He 
sees the desire that has never yet found ful- 
fillment. He sees the hidden heartache 
which never hangs a black flag out of the 
window. He sees the prayer before it had 
uttered itself in words. He sees the love 
which has no adequate means of expression. 
The Lord sits over against the heart, and 
He knows every silent, stealthy thing that 
moves across its floors. He knew what was 
in man. 

And here is another hint about the eyes 
of the Lord: '^As the heavens are high above 
the earth, so are My thoughts higher than 
your thoughts.'' It is the captain's view 



THE EYES OF THE LORD 55 

of things at sea which is so different from 
the landman passengers. The captain can 
interpret the heavens. He knows the path 
across the trackless sea, the big waves have 
no terror in their approach, the night shineth 
even as the day. The landman is the victim 
of immediate discomfort. He cannot read 
the language of the skies. He sees things 
out of proportion. The breeze is a squall, 
and the rolling is a tragedy. And so it is in 
the affairs of life- We are landmen on the 
sea. The captain sees with ^ larger other 
eyes than ours.'' Our great Captain plants 
His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the 
storm. 



XV 

LARGENESS OF HEART 

"God gave Solomon largeness of heart." 

1 Kings iv. 29. 

Largeness of heart is the great primary gift 
in which all other moral and spiritual gifts 
become possible. Littleness of heart makes 
all big things impossible. The little heart has 
no capacity for noble entertainment. Only 
petty things can get in. Indeed, meanness is 
an imperative condition of entrance. A 
large heart is precious, first of all, just be- 
cause of its roominess. It has marvellous 
powers of expansion. It always has room 
for something more. 

Think of some of the big things that dwell 
with easy naturalness in the large heart. 
There is roomy communion with God. The 
prayers have a rich and inclusive fulness. 
The spiritual expectations are of a wealthy 
order. The praises go forth like well-laden 
argosies carrying exports from a rich and 
bountiful land. The joys are big, quiet satis- 

56 



LARGENESS OF HEART 57 

factions, and not small merriments that 
empty themselves in an hour. And, with all 
these, the large heart has a roomy receptive- 
ness. When God comes to it He finds abun- 
dant room wherein to bestow His goods. In 
such lives the good Lord always finds room in 
the inn. And while the large heart sustains 
a roomy fellowship with God it also culti- 
vates a roomy fellowship with men. It is 
magnanimous in all its judgments. Its sym^ 
pathies are like brimming springs, and they 
flow freely on every side. It is given to hos- 
pitality. It has the twin graces of the open 
house and the open hand. 

Now here is a strange discovery of expe- 
rience. A large heart cannot entertain a small 
thought or a mean mood. Littleness cannot 
breathe in an atmosphere of largeness. Lord 
Morley says of Herbert Spencer: ^^He was 
not one of those large minds in which small 
outward things have no place.'' That is a 
word which almost defines a law of human 
life. A large mind is immune from small 
invasions. And therefore our first and finest 
security against the petty enemies, which 
carry such a deadly poison, is to grow a big- 
ger soul. 



5a THE EAGLE LIFE 

^^ISTo man, by being anxious, can add a 
cubit unto Ms stature. ' ' But in the realm of 
the spirit we can, by reasonable thought and 
consecration, put ourselves into such rela- 
tionship to the Lord that we can surely ob- 
tain spiritual enlargement. The enlarge- 
ment may not come to us solely through the 
ministry of supplication. It may come by 
our supplications co-operating with God in 
the control of apparently unfriendly circum- 
stances. Our present lot may seem very un- 
favourable to spiritual growth, and yet the 
very antagonism may be appointed minister 
of our enlargement. ^^In my distress Thou 
hast enlarged me ! ' ' That is the divine para- 
dox. We are shut up in straits, and we 
come out bigger men ! Perhaps we entered 
our imprisonment as pilgrims who were only 
endowed with feet ; we came out as birds of 
God, equipped with wings ! But however the 
enlargement may come to us, and whatever 
be the manner of our circumstances, our 
growth is absolutely sure if we reverently 
relate ourselves to our God in faith and 
prayer, through the merits of Jesus Christ 
our Lord. 



XVI 

FIRST AID 

"Behold an angel touched him, and said unto him, 
^Arise and eat.' " 

1 Kings xix. 5. 

Here is a prophet in the bonds of melan- 
choly. The light of his hope has been blown 
out. His soul has been convulsed, and his 
faith is shaken and lies like an overturned 
pillow upon the ground. Life has lost its 
strong serviceableness and its attractive sa- 
vour. Nothing remains that is worth while. 
The brief volume of his active, busy days is 
ending in futility and disaster. ^^And he 
came and sat down under a juniper tree, and 
requested for himself that he might die.'' 

*^And behold, an angel!" And what will 
the angel do for this fainting, drooping ser- 
vant of God? What will the angel say? 
What first aid will he give to this broken 
spirit? Does he rend the temporal veil and 
rejuvenate the wayworn prophet by some 
vivid glimpse of the fighting hosts of God ? 

59 



60 THE EAGLE LIFE 

Does lie make some startling declaration of 
the reality of the Creator's immediate pres- 
ence and power ? The angel's ministry is of 
a much more simple character. ' ' He touched 
him and said, ^ Arise and eat.' " Is that all? 
Yes, that is all. That is the beginning and 
the end of the angel's mission. 

Now, that is very significant. An angel 
comes to a godly man w^ho is depressed in 
spirit, and he tells him to give immediate 
attention to the needs of his body ! The be- 
ginnings of restoration are to be found in 
an ordinary meal. Some of his spiritual 
f aintness is due to his physical f aintness, and 
if he remove the one he will help to dispel 
the other. He has allowed himself to get 
*^run down," and his bodily exhaustion has 
partially induced the exhaustion of his soul. 

That is a peril against which we need to be 
on our guard. Our spiritual maladies are 
strengthened by our bodily neglects. There 
are some forms of fearfulness which are 
directly attributable to our bodies being ^^out 
of sorts." Weakness engenders doubt. 
Anaemia produces sluggish wills. Bad blood 
creates irritableness and all the miserable 
retinue that follows in its train. Ill-fed 



FIRST AID 61 

nerves foster nervousness and the ten thou- 
sand fears which portray a discordant and 
chaotic world. Many a man has the night- 
mare that his public usefulness has ended, 
and the cause of the nightmare is a body 
which is clamouring for a little more care. 
Even Mr. Spurgeon wrote out his resigna- 
tion more than once, under the depressing 
conviction that his ministry was over; but 
it was only a rebellious body which was 
colouring everything blue. One night's 
sleep, and in the morning his purposed resig- 
nation was committed to the flames ! Yes, a 
little more care for the body and many bur- 
densome needs would never arise. 

And in these times of sorrow through 
which we are living let us not make our 
griefs tyrannical by giving them the allies 
of exhausted bodies. 



XVII 

THE INVISIBLE FOKCES 

"Lord^ open his eyes that he may see. And behold, 
the mountains were full of horses and chariots round 
about." 

2 Kings vi. 17. 

It is always our peril to think that the visible 
field reveals all the factors in the campaign. 
We are bondslaves to our sight, and we are 
therefore its victims. We make a survey of 
our circumstances, and we are appalled be- 
cause the opposing forces appear overwhelm- 
ing. We do not see the armies of the air, 
the invisible legions which fill the mountains 
with their horses and chariots. We leave out 
the hosts of the Lord. 

The invisible army moves with strange 
quietness. It is as a wind that bloweth where 
it listeth. Nay, scarcely a wind ; more like a 
breath! The army of the Lord is like an 
atmosphere. Its destructive ministry is as 
silent as the frosty air of a calm winter's 
night. ^^The grass withereth because the 

62 



THE INVISIBLE FORCES 63 

breath of the Lord bloweth upon it!'' That 
is all that is needed. And that withering 
breath is blowing upon all the forces of in- 
iquity. It is the certain minister of dissolu- 
tion. We can no more avoid it than we can 
escape the air we breathe. No strategy can 
outmatch it. No subtlety can dodge it. The 
evil doer is in God's withering breath. ^^ Who 
can stand before His cold?" 

On the other hand, the same atmosphere 
can be as the breath of the spring. It is 
the ^^ quickening spirit." It is the secret of 
mystical energy. In its gracious friendli- 
ness ^Hhe leaf shall not wither." It is the 
ally of the faithful, and it endows the cause 
of rectitude with eternal youth. 

The Apostle Paul had a great way of call- 
ing these invisible forces to mind. Only he 
did not call them forces : to him they were 
presences — nay the one Presence, and the 
breath was just the mighty Personality of 
the Holy Ghost. And in the blessed assur- 
ance of this great fellowship he goes along 
his ways, exultantly confronting the seem- 
ingly impossible. He goes to Ephesus in 
this alliance of the Spirit. He goes to 
Corinth. And he impatiently hungers to 



64 THE EAGLE LIFE 

face the tremendous antagonisms in Rome 
herself ! He craves the biggest tasks in order 
that he may reveal the more bountifully his 
resources in grace. He leagued himself with 
the Lord, and He knew himself to be 
^^ mighty to the pulling down of strong- 
holds." And so shall it be with us if we 
ceaselessly seek the same communion, look- 
ing not at the things which are seen, but at 
the things which are not seen. When we go 
out upon a righteous way, even though our 
enemies are massed in fierce hostility, the 
mountains shall be full of invisible horses 
and chariots, for the Lord of Hosts shall be 
with us, the God of Jacob shall be our refuge. 



XVIII 

SntENGTHENING THE HANDS 

"And they strengthened their hands for this good 
work." 

Neh, ii. 18. 

What is the good of planning a work if we 
have no strength ? What is the use of elabo- 
rate programmes if we have no provisions ? 
What is the good of building windmills if 
there is no wind ? And yet that is just what 
many of us are always doing. We pass reso- 
lutions, but nothing happens. We dream 
and talk about rebuilding the battered city, 
but the walls do not rise. And so often our 
visions become Indolent reveries, and we 
just dream of doing all day long. But these 
men of the olden time not only had their 
great dreams, they strengthened their hands 
in God, and into them there came a glorious 
power of ^^lift,'' and they laid hold of the 
ruined heaps of their city, and lo ! the desired 

65 



66 THE EAGLE LIFE 

walls rose in their purposed plan and order. 
In Ms essay on Milton, Hazlitt has this 
glowing and suggestive word: ^^ Milton 
seized the pen with a hand just warm from 
the touch of the ark/' And so Milton's 
imagination was fired with religious zeal. 
And so his genius was elevated and sancti- 
fied. It shone and burned with mystic flame. 
Milton's pen was taken in hand in the very 
passion of consecration. And this is surely 
the secret of triumphant work of every kind 
in the Kingdom of our Lord. Our work so 
often fails because we do not bring enough 
to it. We do not come to the pen from the 
ark. "We take it up with a cold hand. We 
approach our tasks from below and not from 
above. ^^Ye are from beneath: I am from 
above.'' No holy retinue accompanies us 
in our enterprise. And therefore we are un- 
arresting and unimpressive. There is no in- 
evitable energy in us wherewith to shape dis- 
orderly circumstances into the order of the 
Divine Will. Circumstances laugh at us I 
*^ Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who 
are ye?" We issue our commands before 
we have had communion. We lay hold of 
our tools before we have strengthened our 



STRENGTHENING THE HANDS 67 

hands. We take the pen before we have 
touched the ark. 

In times like these the manner in which 
we approach our problems will determine 
whether we shall solve them. There is no end 
of rebuilding to be done. Precious things 
are lying in ruin on every side. Let us come 
to our tasks from the very sanctities of the 
holy place. Let us strengthen our hands for 
the work, with this as our prayer: *^ Estab- 
lish Thou the work of our hands upon us; 
yea, the work of our hands establish Thou 



XIX 

THE NOBLEST CONQUEST 

"He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh 
a city." 

Prov. xvi. 32. 

The first of all kingdoms is the kingdom of 
the soul. No other kingdom can be truly 
prosperous if this is a scene of insurrection 
and discord. The resultant worth of other 
kingdoms is determined by the order and 
harmony in this. Well-regulated spirits 
are the first essential to the might and f ed- 
eracy of an empire. But the wise rulership 
of the spirit does not find its analogy in the 
crushing tyranny of the despot, but in the 
firm and illumined control of an orchestra. 
We do not rule the spirit by suppression or 
mutilation, but rather by a wise balancing 
of all powers, every faculty being permitted 
to exercise itself in its appointed place and 
order. Our control is perfected when ^'all 
that is within us^^ — every instrument in the 

68 



THE NOBLEST CONQUEST 69 

orchestra — ^praises and blesses God's holy 
name. The welcome issue of all strong ruler- 
ship in the spirit is not servitude, but music. 

The enemy who succeeds in debasing my 
spirit is more triumphant than if he had 
conquered my cities. The damage is more 
deadly. If his hatred for me kindles a sim- 
ilar hatred for him he is terribly victorious, 
even though I lay him in the dust. If his 
violence inflames my judgment, if he incites 
me to rashness and folly, he is winning a 
bigger victory than he dreams. If he goads 
me with the policy of ^^an eye for an eye and 
a tooth for a tooth'' he has sacked and squan- 
dered my richest treasury. But if I keep my 
spirit whole, if I hold it in the mood of sanity 
and serenity, if I preserve it from all incen- 
diary fires, I have won my greatest victory, 
and other triumphs will follow in the issue. 

But to rule the spirit, to keep all its pow- 
ers harmonious when tempted to panic and 
riot, to maintain chivalry in all my warfare, 
to keep the holy lights burning on the most 
tempestuous night, demands great resources 
of strength. And the need has been an- 
ticipated, and we can find our resources in 
Christ. * * Be strengthened in the grace which 



70 THE EAGLE LIFE 

is in Jesus Clirist/^ That initial strength 
is not a human achievement, it is a divine 
equipment. It is not the creation of a will, 
it is the gift of grace. It is an enduement, 
the enduement of the Holy Ghost. A man 
is able to rule his spirit when he himself is 
kept by God. 



XX 

THE BLAST OF BURNING 

"The Lord shall purge the blood of Jerusalem by 
the blast of burning." 

IsA, iv. 4. 

Here is a ca^e of foul blood, and when the 
blood is foul the entire body is infected with 
defilement. When the stream is poisoned 
the deadliness touches the entire country- 
side. When the postman has smallpox he 
leaves it at every house. The blood is the 
courier of the body. It is the vital current, 
and if the blood is polluted every fibre of the 
flesh will share its corruption. And the blood 
of Jerusalem was impure. Her life was not 
affected by a temporary fever, or by some 
transient spasm of irritability or fear. She 
was not troubled by a slight chill which had 
made her lukewarm, and which had robbed 
her of speed and nimbleness in the paths of 
obedience. She was the victim of bad blood* 
She had become bad at heart. Her soul was 

71 



n THE EAGLE LIFE 

poisoned. There was something rotten at the 
very core of her being. It was not a passing 
indisposition, it was a deadly possession. 

How is it to be dealt with? ^^By the blast 
of burning." The figure of speech may 
seem confusing, but the meaning is clear. 
Defilement has to be met by fire. Fire is the 
last and greatest resource in the ministry of 
cleansing. When water is powerless, fire is 
efficient. The plague in England in 1665 was 
burned away by the great fire in 1666. And 
so it is in the ministries of God. There are 
plagues and defilements in society which 
seem as though they can only be reached and 
removed by the fires of calamity and tragedy, 
and by the blasts of unutterable woe. There 
are fields which cannot be cleansed by means 
of ordinary culture, by the plough, or the 
spade, or the hoe, but only by the ministry 
of fire. And God's fire comes ! The blast of 
burning visits cities, and countries, and 
races, and through much suffering they 
reach a cleaner, sweeter life. The severity 
may appear destructive, but the destruction 
is the instrument of a gracious culture, as it 
is also the gloomy pioneer of a more bounti- 
ful life. ^^The frost, which kills the harvest 



THE BLAST OF BURNING 73 

of a year, saves the harvest of a century by 
destroying the weevil or the locust/' God's 
frosts are the ministries of coming harvests. 
God's fiery blasts are the fiery dawns of a 
better and larger day, Jerusalem is purged 
by the blast of burning. Our God is a con- 
suming fire. 



XXI 

SILKEN STKINGS AND CAET-ROPES 

"Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of 
vanity, and sin as it were with a cart-rope.'' 

ISA. V. 18. 

That is always the order of moral degen- 
eracy. We begin by toying with iniquity; 
we end by being bound by it. When a liner 
is nearing the dock a light cord is thrown 
across the gulf. A heavier line follows the 
light line, and then a heavier one still, until 
the mighty vessel is held in bonds. And that 
is how our communion with iniquity begins. 
It begins in a fellowship as light and flimsy 
as a gossamer thread. We say of the first 
frail thread, ^^I can beak it whenever I 
like ! ^^ And, all unrecognised by us, the thin 
thread becomes a more complicated line until 
it becomes as a cart-rope which binds us in 
servitude. 

Now, no man when he begins to fondle 
iniquity, ever purposes to be bound by it. 
If the cart-ropes were brought out at the 

74 



SILKEN STRINGS AND CART-ROPES 75 

beginning of our trespass we should all re- 
coil in fear, and turn hastily away. But the 
tempter does not begin with cables and 
chains; he begins with cords of vanity. In 
Tennyson's ^^ Vision of Sin/' the youth who 
is made captive is first of all ensnared by 
his vanity. ^^From the palace came a child 
of sin, And took him by the curls and led him 
in." That is to say, a little flattery was the 
first agent of servitude. A few compliments 
were passed, and the youth was on his way to 
ruin. But the poem ends with the gloomy 
spectacle of a wretched cjnie dragged about 
by cart-ropes in the most tyrannical bonds. 
No one ever intends to be a drunkard. 
The drunkard's degradation does not begin 
with cart-ropes, but with attractive cords of 
vanity. It begins in agreeableness, in light 
conviviality, in something done in the name 
of good fellowship. No one ever intends to 
be an inveterate gambler. Gambling begins 
as a mere condiment to the feast, adding a 
little spice to the game. And then the con- 
diment begets a fierce appetite, and it be- 
comes more important than all the rest of 
the feast. No one ever intends to become a 
confirmed liar. A liar begins his degrada- 



76 THE EAGLE LIFE 

tion in smooth words, in vain compliments, 
in unworthy flatteries. He indulges in easy 
expediencies, and in so-called white lies, 
which do not carry even a suggestion of a 
succeeding chain. All forms of iniquity 
begin their preliminary scouting with light 
threads, coloured threads, gay ribbons, but 
the baser, blacker servitude is on the way. 

The great secret of moral and spiritual 
safety is to be able to discern the silken cords 
of vanity and not to touch them. We must 
exercise our imaginations, and we must 
always see the cart-rope at the end of the 
fragile line. If we play with the threads we 
are surely undone. We must know the evil 
one when he approaches us with fairy webs, 
and we must turn away in the name of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. And there is no surer 
way of acquiring a healthy vigilance than by 
companying much with Jesus, and becoming 
one of His intimate friends. Communion 
creates likeness, and in the wisdom and 
strength of the Lord we can practise His 
resistance and share His glory. 



XXII 

THE DIVINE SIDE OF THINGS 

"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw^the Lord, 
high and lifted up." 

ISA. vi. 1. 

Isaiah had never had that kind of vision 
before. Most certainly he had had spiritual 
experiences, but never one in which the Lord 
was so exalted in overwhelming glory. And 
the strange thing is that the vivid vision 
blazed upon him through the pall of the 
blackest night. His ambitions had been 
dashed in disappointment ; his life was lying 
in confusion. Uzziah had fallen, he who 
was ^Hhe pillar of a people's hopes/' and it 
seemed as if the chariot of progress was 
irreparably overthrown. And it was in that 
dark hour, when the glory of Uzziah had 
vanished in death, and when Isaiah's own 
prospective glory had faded away, that the 
glory of the Lord arose like the rising of the 

77 



78 THE EAGLE LIFE 

sun after a black, tempestuous night. Isaiah 
had been too entirely engrossed with the 
human side of things. Now his eyes were 
turned to the divine side of things, and he 
began to live and serve in the consciousness 
of the glory of the Lord. *^I saw the Lord, 
high and lifted up.'' 

And that is surely one of the purposed 
ministries of apparent misfortune and dis- 
aster, to open out the divine side of things 
and to unveil the heavenly glory. And in- 
deed we may say that the seeming failure is 
no failure at all if it uncover the divine ; the 
calamity has then become the medium of a 
greater triumph. EUice Hopkins was called 
upon to walk rough roads where, for miles, 
grinning defeat was her constant compan- 
ion. Her life had been turned to a crusade 
whose conditions she viewed with repulsion. 
In the early stages of the unwelcome journey 
she lived under an irritating sense of per- 
sonal ignominy and humiliation. And then 
there came the unveiling! She wrote these 
words in after days: ^^My long experience 
in the Valley of Humiliation has effectually 
rid me of the longing to see my glory ! ' ' She 
had been ravished by a vision of the glory of 



THE DIVINE SIDE OF THINGS 79 

the Lord, and all smaller fears and resent- 
ments had faded away. 

When our troubles destroy the yearning 
for our own glory they have been converted 
into the ministers of spiritual growth. The 
apparent rotting of the flax, when it is 
thrown into the seemingly unfriendly tanks, 
prepares the stronger strands for finished 
webs. And when our vanities, and our self- 
gloryings, rot away in the waters of hardship 
or affliction, we may be sure that the bitter 
waters have ministered to us as the veritable 
waters of life. When ^^my glory" changes 
into *^Thy glory," and when we are led to 
pray, ^^Show me Thy glory," the valley of 
Achor has become a door of hope. 

And that is how we may test our trend and 
our progress. Are our little gloryings 
fading away in the presence of something 
brighter ? Are the mere stage-lights and the 
limelights going out ? Is ambition changing 
into aspiration ? Is sight becoming insight ? 
Are we seeing behind the veil ? Are we catch- 
ing the vision of the divine side of things, 
the glory of the Lord? Is quest of personal 
glory changing into prayer, and worship, 



80 THE EAGLE LIFE 

and consecrated service ? Are we finding our 
God in the night? Do we see Jesus walking 
across the troubled seas ? ^^In the year that 
King Uzziah died I saw the Lordl'^ 



xxni 

GLORY EVERYWHERE 

"The fullness of the whole earth is His glory .'^ 

IsA. vi. 3. 

This was the song of the seraphim, those 
burning ministers whose purity is translu- 
cent, and who dwell in the immediate pres- 
ence of God. And they sung that the fullness 
of natural glory is the vesture of the Lord. 
Wherever they gazed upon beauty, they 
knew it to be the hem of His garment. 
Every glorious thing was significant with 
God. Everywhere they heard the rustle of 
mystic wings. Their purity gave them 
senses of superlative refinement, and mate- 
rial things became transparent and sacra- 
mental, and they held communion with the 
inward spirit, which was the Spirit of God. 
Now we can almost test our spiritual 
strength by our discernment of the divine 
glory. The power of our lens is determined 
by the measure of our purity. We may 

81 



82 THE EAGLE LIFE 

gauge our purity by our vision. How much, 
then, of ^Hhe fullness of the whole earth'' do 
we recognise as the glory of God? How 
much of nature is vesture, the garment of 
an immediate Presence? When we go on 
our holidays to grand or lovely places, what 
kind of a time has the soul in vision and 
communion? How much of the grandeur 
of loveliness is felt to be holy ground, 
haunted by the indwelling Spirit of God? 
Or, when we gaze upon anything noble and 
glorious in human life, with what measure 
of readiness do we interpret the human 
^ ' fullness ' ' as the shining glory of God ? Are 
our eyes dim and is our vision sealed, so that 
we can be in the wide house of the Lord and 
not know it, and be in the very brightness of 
His glory and not discern His presence ? It 
is all a matter of eyes, and eyes are all a 
matter of holiness. 

^^ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God. ' ' '' Lord, that I might receive 
my sight ! " " Lord, if Thou wilt Thou canst 
make me clean.'' ^^I will; be thou clean.'' 
And in that reaction the eyes are enlightened 
to behold the glory of the Lord. 



XXIV 

A MISSING HAND 

"Who will go for meV^ 

IsA. vi. 8. 

Here is the Almighty waiting for a human 
instrmnent. The mere statement of such a 
possibility touches the soul with awe. The 
Father of our spirits has imposed upon 
Himself a limitation which makes Him de- 
pendent upon his children. There is divine 
work which tarries until the appointed soul 
arrives. We are exalted to be fellow la- 
bourers with God. What sublime dignity 
is hidden in the fellowship ! What a coronal 
glory it confers upon the common life ! The 
seemingly tiny inlet is related to the im- 
measureable seas. God's holy purposes lay 
hold of human ministries, and the insignifi- 
cant inch is glorified by the Infinite. 

And so it is that we men and women are 
to be standing at attention, waiting to re- 
ceive our commissions. We are to have our 

83 



84 THE EAGLE LIFE 

loins girt and our lamps burning. We are 
to be ^^shod with the readiness of the gospel 
of peace." For we never know when some 
purpose of the Lord is ripening, when a 
human instrument will be wanted and a new 
commission given. ^^At such an hour as ye 
think not the Son of Man cometh." And 
therefore it is our wisdom to be always ready, 
listening for the ennobling summons of the 
Lord. ^^How soon can you be ready for the 
Soudan?" Gordon was asked. ^^I am ready 
now, ' ' he answered. ' ' As much as in me is, ' ^ 
said the Apostle Paul, ^^I am ready to preach 
the gospel to you that are in Rome also." 

And what are our commissions likely to 
be? For the vast majority of us they are 
likely to be quite ordinary errands. The 
essential things in human life are spiritual 
vitalities, and these are carried in the sim- 
plest ministries. Apparently commonplace 
fidelities are laden with heaven 's grace. The 
crying needs of the world are elemental, and 
they are to be met by the elemental satisfac- 
tion of faith, and hope, and love. To be the 
minister of these graces is to be the fellow 
labourer of God. I remember an incident in 
^'Aurora Leigh." Lucy Gresham, the poor 



A MISSING HAND 85 

seamstress, lay dying in an attic. Marian 
Erie, also a poor seamstress, was in the work- 
room with the other girls when she heard the 
news. Laying down her work at once, she 
hastened away to the sufferer that she might 
be God's minister in the hour of need. 
^' *Why, God,' thought Marian, ^has a miss- 
ing hand this moment ; Lucy wants a drink 
perhaps. Let others miss me ! Never miss 
me, God!' " That willingness to be the 
missing hand is the secret and the genius of 
a consecrated life. 



XXV 

THE LIFE THAT HAS NO MORNING 

"If they speak not according to His word, surely 
there is no morning for them." 

ISA. viii. 20. 

If a man build not according to the plumb- 
line there cannot dawn upon him the glory 
of a finished pile. If a man despise the 
plumb-line his work will not issue in a 
shining temple but in a dismal rubbish-heap. 
Even in architecture there is no morning for 
the disobedient: there is only the darkness 
of futility and disorder. The rebellious 
builder, who builds as he pleases, is assuredly 
moving toward chaos and night. And if a 
man build not his life according to the divine 
word there will be for him no morning of 
bright and finished achievement. The trend 
of his day is toward a miserable sunset, and 
not toward the morning star and the things 
of the perfect day. When a stone is well and 
truly laid it is sealed with the promise of 

86 



THE LIFE THAT HAS NO MORNING 87 

glory : when it is laid in iniquity it is sealed 
with the assurance of doom. 

^^ Light is sown for the righteous!'' It is 
God who said ^^Let there be light/' who still 
makes all our mornings, and it is only when 
our wills are buried in His will that we be- 
come the children of promise, the promise of 
a wonderful dawn. There are some people 
who are most evidently and conspicuously 
people with a morning ! It is not a matter 
of wealth or poverty; it is a matter 
of spirit, and attitude, and relation ; and we 
can clearly see that they are stepping east- 
ward^ and their faces are even now catching 
the first flush of the dawn. And there are 
others who are quite as evidently people 
without a morning. When we think of them, 
or look upon them, when we consider their 
mode and manner of life, we think of twi- 
light and evening bell, of sunset and coming 
night. Their little game will be played out 
to-day — quite played out! 

The man who builds on falsehood has no 
morning. The nation that builds on false- 
hood has no morning. It is truth alone that 
belongs to the dawn and has the promise of 
the day. Falsehood belongs to the darkness, 



88 



THE EAGLE LIFE 



and in darkness and dissolution it will find 
its appointed end. ^^For yet a little while, 
and the wicked shall not be. ' ' " But He shall 
make thy righteousness go forth as the light, 
and thy judgment as the noonday/' 



XXVI 

THE VALLEY OF VISION 

"The valley of vision." 

IsA. xxii. 5. 

That is a very strange conjunction. We 
could have understood the phrase had it been 
^^The hill of vision." It is the mountain 
summit which is usually associated with out- 
look. One remembers ^Hhe high hill, called 
Clear/' where Christian and Hopeful could 
dimly see the gates and also some of the glory 
of the celestial city. But here it is the valley 
which is the home of vision. The outlook is 
given in seeming imprisonment. We are 
shut in by surrounding hills, and our sight 
attains finer perception and range. The 
limitation becomes the minister of expan- 
sion. The big wonder is born in a narrow 
place. I remember my surprise when I paid 
my first visit to the Tower of London. At 
one point we were taken along a narrow, 
dingy passage which opened into the gloomy 

89 



90 THE EAGLE LIFE 

chamber where the Crown jewels were kept. 
One was almost startled to see those flashing 
jewels in such confined and grey surround- 
ings ; but a similar wonder often startles the 
saint when, in some gloomy valley experi- 
ences, there flash upon him the unsearchable 
riches of Christ. 

And now take this word from the spiritual 
experience of Horace Bushnell: *^I have 
learned more of experimental religion since 
my little boy died than in all my life before.'' 
Bushnell had had many rare experiences on 
the mountain-top, but they were nothing to 
the visions that were unveiled to him in the 
valley. The darker school gave him the finer 
sight. And may we not reverently remem- 
ber the word which is spoken of our Lord, 
that ^^He learned obedience by the things 
which He suffered.'' That mysterious en- 
richment came to Him in the valley. And 
indeed, we may be perfectly sure that mil- 
lions of God's children have found enlarge- 
ment in the valley. They have begun to see, 
or they have strengthened their sight, in the 
very season when they were blinded with 
tears. It is in the valley that we see into the 
heart of God. There are narrow roads in 



THE VALLEY OF VISION 91 

the valley in wMcli we share ^Hhe fellowship 
of His sufferings," and in that sacred com- 
munion we begin to see a little way into the 
dark mysteries of His Cross. It is because, 
in our own degree, we are like Him, that we 
see Him a little ^^as He is.'^ 

So that when we are led into sombre val- 
leys, let us humbly and expectantly assume 
that we are in the place of vision. Maybe 
the Lord is going to anoint our eyes with 
eye-salve, and He will impart unto us one 
of His secrets. Perhaps it was needful that 
we should be led into the valley in order that 
we might receive our sight. And thus life's 
valleys will be found to be the abodes of the 
divine mercy as well as those breezy heights 
which catch the first beams of the rising sun. 
Even in the valley we may see the King in 
His beauty, and the land that is very far off. 



XXYII 

COMPENSATIONS 

"He stayeth His rough wind in the day of the east 
wind." 

IsA. xxvii. 8. 

And, therefore, as we say, there is always 
something to be thankful for. If one thing 
visits ns another thing is kept away. Or if 
there is impoverishment in one direction 
there is enlargement in another. When the 
darkness falls the stars come out. When 
winter strips the trees hidden prospects are 
disclosed. When we are sick shy kindnesses 
steal out of their seclusion. We never knew 
we had so many friends until death broke 
our fellowships. And so we are smitten on 
one side, and we are graciously liberated on 
another. We are bound with chains, and we 
have fellowship with angels. We are ^*cast 
down, but not destroyed.'' 

It is a blind girl in one of Ian Maclaren's 
stories who is speaking: ^*If I dinna' see, 

92 



COMPENSATIONS 9S 

there's naebody in the Glen can hear like me. 
There's no a footstep of a Drumtochty man 
comes to the door but I ken his name, and 
there's no voice oot on the road that I canna 
telL The birds sing sweeter to me than to 
onybody else, and I can hear them cheeping 
in the bushes before they go to sleep. And 
the flowers smell sweeter to me — ^the roses 
and the carnations and the bonny moss rose. 
JSTa, na, ye 're no to think that I've been ill- 
treated by my God, for if He didna' give me 
ae thing, He gave me many things instead.'' 

Such is the confidence we may have in our 
God. He leads the blind by a way they 
know not. When they lose their eyes other 
discernments are quickened, and they have 
the mystic intimacy of an unerring Guide 
and Friend. Samuel Rutherford used to 
say that when he found himself in the cellars 
of affliction he began to look about for the 
King's wine. And John Bunyan used to 
look for the lilies of peace and the Lord's 
heartsease in the Valley of Humiliation. 
And out of the eater comes forth meat ; the 
lion which prowls forth to slay us to-day will 
provide us with honey to-morrow. 

What gracious compensation the Lord is 



94 



THE EAGLE LIFE 



prepared to give to our spirits in our day of 
desolation and distress ! He feeds us with 
Mdden manna. We have bread to eat which 
the world knows not of. We grow even 
while we are in straits. *^In my distress 
Thou hast enlarged me.'' That is the won- 
der of it, that when destruction seemed to 
abound the soul had a mystic nourishment 
which established it in a more robust and 
vigorous health. Hagar was in the wilder- 
ness, but the Lord opened a fountain of 
water. In desert-places angels come and 
minister unto us. ^^He stayeth His rough 
wind in the day of the east wind. ' ' He giveth 
songs in the night. 



XXVIII 

THE MYSTERIOUS SWORD 

"Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of 
man : and the sword, not of man, shall devour him." 

IsA. xxxi. 8. 

Whex we have counted the material arms 
upon the field we have not told the full tale 
of contending armaments. There is a de- 
vouring sword, not held in the grasp of man, 
and it is fearfully active in unseen but sure 
destruction. That invisible sword can slay- 
invisible things. For instance, it can kill 
the vitality of a man's hope, and sink him 
in despondency and despair. It can cut the 
sinews of his courage in the very thick of the 
conflict, and make him shake with fear. It 
can pierce the strength of his judgment, and 
cause him to wander in self-deception and 
delusion. It can maim men who have re- 
ceived no wound, and it can make the ma- 
terially mighty helpless as babes. ^^The 
sword, not of man, shall devour him.'^ 

95 



96 THE EAGLE LIFE 

This invisible sword is the ally of the 
truth, and it is the antagonist of iniquity. It 
is even so in the individual life. The soul 
that is leagued with iniquity is being de- 
voured by the sword. Nay, it is the ordina- 
tion of the holy Lord that evil itself becomes 
a sword and does deadly work in the soul. 
^^Evil shall slay the wicked.'^ And so it 
often happens that the apparent instrument 
of a man's prosperity is at the same time the 
instrument of a deeper ruin. The falsehood 
that built a fortune slew the angel in the soul. 
*^The wages of sin is death." The evildoer 
cannot escape this sword of the Lord. 

And this invisible sword is also active in 
the corporate life of States. When a nation 
enthrones iniquity, when it harbours injus- 
tice, when it exalts self-will into a crusade, 
when it makes material interests supreme, 
' ' a sword, not of man, shall devour it. ' ' The 
sword can no more be escaped than can God 
himself. The nation may remain for a time 
in apparent strength, as the beams of a 
house which have been hollowed out by the 
white ants may seem to be perfectly whole, 
but the coming day will reveal that its inner 



THE MYSTERIOUS SWORD 97 

strengtli is hollow and dead. And what shall 
it profit a nation if it gain the whole world 
and lose its soul? Or what shall a nation 
give in exchange for its soul ? 



XXIX 

THE TRANSFORMED DESERT 

"The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." 

ISA. XXXV. 1. 

I HAVE lately read two fascinating articles, 
which had most suggestive titles. One of 
them was entitled ^^ Notes from an Ambu- 
lance Train/' and it contained the detailed 
observations of a fervent botanist, and the 
observations were made through the window 
of the train as it journeyed up the line for 
a load. ^* Traveller's joy runs riot over the 
bushes and sloping banks ; coming just after 
the roses have gone, it is especially wel- 
come." ^^The Scottish bluebell is a wel- 
come sight in the hedgerows." And this is 
from an ambulance train running through 
the desolate parts of France! The second 
article bore the title, ^^The Wild Flowers of 
the Trenches," and the enthusiastic ob- 
server tells how he has seen along the line of 
the trenches, and around the shell holes, such 

98 



THE TRANSFORMED DESERT 99 

flowering plants as marguerites and hedge 
parsley and poppies. When I read these 
eager records of these waste places I could 
not but remember the words of the aston- 
ished prophet, ^^The wilderness and the soli- 
tary place shall be glad ; and the desert shall 
rejoice and blossom like the rose." 

Seen from an ambulance train? A much 
more marvellous record might be compiled 
from the intimate observations made by the 
sick and the broken as they look out over the 
fields of their stricken life. I went to see one 
such sick friend in New York, and he quietly 
said to me as he lay in bed: ^^ Things look 
very different when seen from the horizontal 
position. ' ' Yes, and it is not only that things 
appear in different colours, and assume quite 
different shapes and sizes, but the grace of 
God reveals itself in fresh and gracious sur- 
prises. The via dolorosa has many a sweet 
blossoming thing springing up in the gloomy 
way. Yes, even ^traveller's joy runs riot 
over the bushes,'' as the joy of the Lord 
appeared in the prison at Philippi to two 
scourged men whose feet were fast in the 
stocks. ^^At midnight Paul and Silas sang 
praises, and the prisoners heard them.'^ 



100 THE EAGLE LIFE 

What is that but the traveller's joy? And 
what surpassing plants of heavenly hearts- 
ease appear when the Lord makes the 
wounded spirit whole and calms the troubled 
breast! And what exquisite gentleness 
when the great Physician is busy with our 
broken hearts, and when He wipes away the 
secret tears which no other eye can see! 
There was one sufferer who emerged from 
his season of grief and bruising with this 
grateful song upon his lips : ^^Thou hast en- 
larged me when I was in distress. ' ' His eyes 
had been opened to undreamed-of riches in 
the inheritance of grace, and God's gentle- 
ness had made him great. 

The wild flowers of the trenches! Beau- 
tiful things springing up in the home of 
struggle! The scenes of warfare now be- 
come the scenes of novel loveliness! The 
fields of carnage the site of new worlds! 
And who can tell what strong and healthy 
moral growths are to spring out of all the 
tragic desolations of our time? God's seed 
has been sown in the blood of our sacrifices 
and on the stern wilderness golden harvests 
will be reaped by generations yet unborn. 



THE TRANSFORMED DESERT 101 

There be some who say, ^'To what purpose 
is this waste ?" The waving corn of coming 
days shall be the answer and the memorial 
of our sacrifice. 



XXX 

THE SONGS OF THE ROAD 

"The ransomed of the Lord shall come to Zion with 
songs." 

ISA. XXXV. 10. 

In his very gracious and inspiring life of 
his father, Denholm Brash, his son tells us 
of his father's passionate love for the 
Methodist Hjmnsl, and how they agreed to 
call the sections on Pilgrimage and Guid- 
ance ' ' The Songs of the Open Road. ' ' I like 
the title. It tells me that heavenly pilgrims 
are to be known by their songs. When we 
overtake them, or when they pass us on the 
road, they are to be distinguished by their 
singing. When Christian was creeping 
through the appalling Valley of the Shad- 
ows, and he became very disconsolate, and 
the way was exceedingly narrow and full of 
abominations, he heard another pilgrim sing- 
ing, '^1 will fear no evil,'' and with that he 
was made glad, for he hoped to have com- 
pany by-and-by. 

102 



THE SONGS OF THE ROAD 103 

Pilgrims must sing for their own sakes. 
Songs are the appointed helpmeets of the 
journey, and if we reject them the road 
doubles its length. ^^If the way be weary, 
tell it Him in song/' and in the very telling 
some of the weariness will have fled. In one 
of the most powerful of his poems Words- 
worth describes a marvellous sunset which 
he saw from the cliffs on the northwestern 
coast of England. And this is how he says 
he felt: ^^ Wings at my shoulders seemed to 
play.'' And those are the very wings which 
play upon the shoulders of pilgrims who 
pace the highway of the Lord singing the 
songs of Zion. The song fills the soul with 
a sense of lightness, and gives nimbleness to 
the heavy feet. Even Mr. Eeady-to-Halt 
^ ^footed it well" when Mercy began to play 
upon the lute, and melody was heard upon 
the road. 

And we must force ourselves to sing the 
song even when the bird has injured wings. 
^^How can we sing the songs of Zion in a 
strange land?" Yes, but as Dr. Eendel 
Harris has somewhere said, ^^What might 
have happened if they had tried?" What 
missionary influence there might have been 



104 



THE EAGLE LIFE 



in the uplifted psalm ! A song in the night 
has a haunting strain ! ' ' Nearer, my God, to 
Thee," sung when the tempest is sweeping 
down the road, becomes a call and an evan- 
gel to many who have not yet turned to the 
pilgrim road. And so the pilgrim heart 
should be the home of song. Song shortens 
the road, it doubles the service. 



XXXI 

THE EAGLE LIFE 

"They shall mount up with wings.'' 

ISA. xl. 31. 

*^My religious organs have been ailing for a 
while past. I have lain a sheer hulk in con- 
sequence. But I got out my wings, and have 
taken a change of air!" That is just it, we 
forget or neglect our wings. We travel 
along our roads as mere pedestrians, and we 
are sorely overcome, for the hostility of our 
circumstances wearies us to the dust. Or 
we are engaged upon some exacting ministry 
which imprisons us in our particular place. 
Or maybe we are shut up in a chamber of 
sickness, either as the patient or in service 
upon the patient. In a hundred different 
ways we can be cribbed, cabined, and con- 
fined, and our religious organs are in danger 
of becoming sickly, and of losing their 
brightness both in mood and discernment. 
And all the time those wings are waiting ! 

105 



106 THE EAGLE LIFE 

And if we would we could soar into larger 
regions in an ampler air. In one of Ms most 
powerful poems BroT\Tiing addresses an 
angel as '^thou bird of God!" And surely 
we are entitled to use the phrase of the soul. 
Perhaps we have held too much to the con- 
ception of the pilgrims, and even in our 
thinking we may have kept too close to the 
road. We are not only pilgrims of the night ; 
quite as truly we are the birds of God, en- 
dowed with power to mount up with wings as 
eagles, to respond to the upward calling, and 
to breathe the lofty air of the heavenliness 
in Christ Jesus. But we forget our wings ! 
We are like the Alpine insects of which 
Fabre tells us in his wonderful book on the 
grasshopper. '^I do not know," he says, 
^^why the insect deprives itself of wings and 
remains a plodding wayfarer, when its near 
kinsman, on the same Alpine swards, is ex- 
cellently equipped for flight. It possesses 
the germs of wings and wing-case, but it does 
not think of developing them. It persists in 
hopping, with no further ambition ; it is sat- 
isfied to go on foot." These words of the 
great naturalist are as true of multitudes of 
men and women as they are of the insects 



THE EAGLE LIFE 107 

that hop about the lower slopes of the Alps. 
They walk ; they never soar. They go along 
the road with heavy feet ; they never rise in 
joyful exaltation. They are always on the 
earth. They never leave the earth and re- 
turn to it again with freshened spirits after 
a renewing flight in heavenly places with 
Christ Jesus. They have no upper air 
which they regard as part of their blessed 
inheritance. 

Even the finest pilgrims are those who 
remember that they are also birds. The 
crusaders, who wage the noblest conflicts 
along the road, are just those who get out 
their wings and soar for a change of air. 
The man who takes occasional flights to the 
new Jerusalem is a more efficient labourer 
in the old Jerusalem. The man whose citi- 
zenship is in heaven is sure to be a very 
noble citizen of earth. They have the 
freshest eye, and the most hopeful vision, 
and the most inspiring mood, and all this 
just because they are the most inspired. 
They are ^Hrue to the kindred points of 
heaven and home.'' 

And how do we put on the wings ? ' ' They 
that wait upon the Lord . • . shall mount 



108 THE EAGLE LIFE 

up with wings!" In this reahn communion 
is ascension. When we turn our hearts unto 
the Lord the power of wing is ours, and we 
can rise from our little prisons, or from our 
tiresome road, into the high heaven of spirit- 
ual rest and vision. In the Christian life 
rising is resting. When we have been on the 
wing we shall be able to walk and not faint. 
And those wings are waiting for us! But 
how we do forget them! 



XXXII 

LIKE THE WAVES 

"0 that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments ! 
• . . then had thy righteousness been like the waves of 
the sea." 

IsA. xlviii. 18. 

So that is what our rectitude is to be like; 
it is to possess an irresistible energy wMch 
will make it like the waves of the sea. I am 
writing these words in mid- Atlantic, and I 
have just been watching one gigantic wave* 
which has hurled itself against our boat with 
terrific force and made it tremble from bow 
to stem. But we need not be a thousand 
miles away on the Atlantic to experience the 
power of the waves. We have watched the 
common breakers as they emptied their 
floods upon the shore, smashing up every 
impediment, and carrying every opposing 
thing before them as they raced along the 
beach. They toss heavy beams about like 
shuttlecocks, and they take up boulders and 
throw them hither and thither as a very little 

109 



no THE EAGLE LIFE 

thing. And our righteousness is to be like 
that, tremendous and inevitable. 

But our righteousness is too often like a 
tiny runlet which has scarcely outlasted the 
drought. There are streamlets which just 
creep along in indolence as though at any 
moment they might lose themselves in the 
sands. A little child can turn them aside. 
Make a little channel with your foot and the 
water takes the new course. You can lead 
them where you please ; they have no power, 
no imperative trend, no uncompromising 
destiny. And the righteousness in some 
lives is just like these faint and easily 
diverted streams. It is a mere rill of loyalty, 
and anything and anybody can change its 
goings. An opposing difficulty arises, and 
the feeble conviction seeks an easier way. 
If Vanity Fair interposes, or the mysterious 
enticements of the Enchanted Ground, this 
anaemic righteousness is entirely lost. It has 
no force, no inherent and unbribable energy ; 
there is nothing imperative about it, nothing 
glorious and irresistible. 

It is God's will that our righteousness 
should be like the waves of the sea. Think 
of our moral energy advancing against 



LIKE THE WAVES 111 

temptations with the power of an advancing 
tide ! Think of our encountering moral ob- 
stacles and ^impossibles" with the mighty 
strength of racing waves ! And think of the 
co-operative strength of the righteousness of 
the Church of Christ attacking social evils 
with all the tremendous assault of a great 
sea! Too often we only tickle evils, we do 
not smash them! We flow lazily around 
them, we do not sweep them away ! 

^^O that thou hadst hearkened to my com- 
mandments,'' then this mighty wave of 
power would have been ours. But this 
^^ hearkening" implies divine communion. 
It is the listening of reverence, it is the mood 
of reception. This sort of hearkening makes 
the soul hospitable to the divine, and the 
great God enters in. And it is the God 
within us Who makes our righteousness like 
the waves of the sea. ^^I can do all things in 
Christ Who strengtheneth me." With God 
within we are irresistible. 



XXXIII 

THE DIVINE MINISTRY OF DISPLACEMENT 

"Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and 
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree." 

ISA. Iv. 13. 

These words unveil one of the great ways of 
our God. He displaces one thing by another. 
The fir comes up in strength and fills the 
place that was occupied by the thorn. The 
myrtle appears in vigour and makes its home 
in the bed of the brier. And so it is in the 
soul of man. God crowds out one thing by 
another and the first thing withers away. He 
imparts His own spirit, and the new spirit 
excludes the old temper. He gives a vision 
and some prejudice dies. He plants a royal 
virtue and some miserable vice disappears. 
This is how the Lord makes His gardens. It 
is the wonderful process described in Dr. 
Chalmers^ famous and familiar phrase, 
*^The expulsive power of a new affection.'' 
And so it becomes clear what a harrow- 
ingly disappointing way it is to try to create 

112 



DIVINE MINISTRY OF DISPLACEMENT 113 

a garden in the spirit by merely pulling up 
the weeds. I read tMs counsel in a book of 
devotion: ^^Pull up one fault a week, and 
what a clearance there will be in the course 
of the year!'^ It is disastrous advice, and 
there will be no end of heartache at the close 
of the year. In the first place, who knows 
what his faults and vices really are ? There 
are some which the Bible describes as 
^^ presumptuous.'^ Anybody can see them 
because they are so glaring. But there are 
others which the Bible describes as ^^ secret/^ 
and their hiding-place is as intricate as a 
rabbit warren. ^^Who can discern his 
errors ?'' Who can tell just what they are? 
And, as a second difficulty in the way of 
this counsel, who is to determine the order in 
which the vices are to be removed? Which 
is the more deadly, drunkenness or false- 
hood, and which shall go out first ? Which is 
the more insidious influence, pride or envy ? 
Which does the more harm, jealousy or 
censoriousness ? What shall we first lay hold 
of in the work of uprooting ? Shall we seize 
a presumptuous sin or seek for something 
more secret ? A furtive cancer is more seri- 
ous than an external rash. 



114 THE EAGLE LIFE 

And there is still another question. How 
may we know that a vice is really uprooted, 
and that the last delicate fibre of its most 
secret rootlet has been removed ? How may 
we be quite sure that there is nothing left 
to form the beginning of a new growth? 
Who is to say when the soil is clean and 
when every bit of thorn and brier has been 
cast out? It is surely very bad counsel to 
urge us to clean our hearts by weeding. 

There is nothing for it but to hand over 
the thorny, briery desert to the Lord. 
^^Here is the mlderness of my life! I sur- 
render it to Thee, most holy and gracious 
Lord!" And the good Lord accepts the 
surrendered desert. The first thing He does 
is to renew the soil by the mighty enriching 
energies of His grace. And then He plants 
His new growths. He plants the vigorous 
word of His truth, and the thorns and briers 
of falsity are smothered in its presence. He 
imparts His own peace, and there is an end 
of the thorns of feverish distraction, and 
there is an end of the briers of ill-temper and 
discord. And He gives His own joy, and 
the thorns of discontent cannot live beside it, 
and the briers of moroseness and bitterness 



DIVINE MINISTRY OF DISPLACEMENT 115 

pass away. That is the great secret of the 
transformed wilderness. It is our part to 
abide in the great Gardener, and He will 
make His own garden. 



XXXIV 

THE GAZE OF THE QUESTIONER 

"They shall inquire coneeming Zion with their faces 
thitherwards." Jeb. 1. 5. 

The trouble is that so many people inquire 
about a thing while their faces are set upon 
something else. They ask about one way but 
they are looking another. They are inter- 
ested in theology but not in religion. They 
will engage in ecclesiastical controversy, but 
they will not surrender themselves as vital 
members of the Church of Christ. They 
will discuss the psychology of conversion, 
but they will not turn their feet toward home 
and seek the Lord with all their minds and 
hearts. They will study the map, but they 
have no intention of making the journey. 
They will read the guide-book, but they are 
not like travellers whose faces are stead- 
fastly set to go to Jerusalem. They inquire 
concerning Zion, but their faces do witness 
against them. 

116 



THE GAZE OF THE QUESTIONER 117 

Now that kind of inquiring is fruitless. 
What is the good of asking questions in one 
direction while the soul is looking another ? 
For one thing, such a soul does not bring the 
needful equipment for the apprehension of 
the truth. A merely curious spirit can never 
really know the secrets of the Lord. It is 
one of the conditions of spiritual discovery 
that the entire strength of mind and heart 
be brought to the exploration, and that we 
ask, and seek, and batter away at the closed 
doors until they open, and we pass from 
room to room in the ever-brightening rooms 
of the temple of truth, which is the home 
of our God. The secret of the Lord is not 
revealed to a mere debating society ; it is un- 
veiled in the holy place where we have built 
an altar and offered our entire being in holy 
sacrifice. The man who is only curious is 
turned empty away. The seriousness, or 
flippancy, of our questions will be seen in the 
fixed direction of our gaze. Are our faces 
thitherward ? 

Every minister is acquainted with the talk- 
ing inquirers whose souls are looking an- 
other way. They will discuss the Atonement 
by the hour, but if we ask, **Do you desire 



118 THE EAGLE LIFE 

to have your sins forgiven, and to become 
a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ?" we 
speedily find that their faces are not thither- 
ward. They will question through a long 
night, even to the cock-crow, about the divin- 
ity of our Lord, but if we ask them if they 
are ready to cast their crowns at His feet, 
we see at a glance that their faces are not 
thitherward. And therefore all such ques- 
tioning is a waste of time. Nay, it is worse 
than a waste of time, for it wastes the 
powers of the soul in a semblance of earnest- 
ness which is only an unreal and painted fire. 
If there is ever to be revelation and revolu- 
tion, the asking must be packed by that eager 
and determined gazing which is the primary 
secret of triumphant prayer. 



XXXV 

THE ALMOND TREE 

"Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, 
saying, ^Jeremiah, what seest thou?' And I said, ^I 
see the rod of an almond tree.' Then the Lord said 
unto me, ^Thou hast well seen, for I watch over my 
word to perform it/ " 

Jer. i. 11-12. 

The almond tree is the first tree to lift its 
blooms in mastery of winter. It is in flower 
when all other things are sleeping. It is like 
a wakeful, watchful sentinel when all the 
troops are locked in slumber. Or shall we 
rather say that the almond tree is always 
first upon the field ? No other tree ever an- 
ticipates it or takes it by surprise. And so 
it is with our God. He is the wakeful Pres- 
ence when all other beings are asleep. The 
merely clever man, the cunning man, dis- 
covers that the place is occupied which he 
designed to fill alone. God is before him! 
The enemies of the Lord are always too late. 
God watches over Israel: He that keepeth 
Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. 

119 



120 THE EAGLE LIFE 

Well, here is a young man named Jere- 
miah, who has been called to an unfamiliar 
and exacting office. He is fearful before the 
prospect; he trembles at the demand. He 
feels his lack of experience. He is miserably- 
conscious of the poverty of his equipment. 
He shrinks from the task. It will be too 
much for him. His enemies are many, and 
they have the double advantage of years and 
ingenuity. In every emergency he will be 
outrun. In every crisis he will be outclassed 
and outdone. ^^Ah, Lord God, I cannot 
speak ; for I am a child ! ' ' 

And as he walks along the way, buried 
in this melancholy mood, the Spirit of God 
directs his eyes and mind to an almond tree 
as it unrolls its living banners over the win- 
try waste. ^^ Jeremiah, what seest thouT' 
And as he gazes upon it the almond tree be- 
comes sacramental, a vital symbol of still 
more significant things. It is awake, while 
everything else is sleeping. ^^And I,'' says 
the Lord, ^^ watch over My word to perform 
if The young prophet is not abandoned 
to the thin armour of scanty experience. He 
is not left to the mercy of more ^^ knowing'' 
antagonists. His God anticipates all human 



THE ALMOND TREE 121 

devices. His servants do not follow a blind 
leadership. Neither do we walk in our sleep. 
Following God, we are children of the day, 
and we walk in the light even as He is in the 
light. 

And thus it is that the servant of the Lord 
finds prepared ground at every step of the 
road. ' ' The Lord, He it is that goeth before 
thee!'^ God has a plan of campaign: there 
are no surprises in His warfare ; every hos- 
tile attack is foreseen and provided for. We 
are not led by ignorance or by caprice which 
is confused a hundred times a day. Our 
God has eyes ! He is Alpha and Omega, and 
He sees the end from the beginning. He is 
the first and the last on the field. 

And, therefore, with such a leader, trem- 
bling fear should change into songful 
courage. It is not enemy's country through 
which we are marching, and where he alone 
is familiar with the ground. ^^We are 
marching through Emmanuel 's land ! ' ' And 
we are to step out with a steadfast assurance 
which is the parent of peace and quiet joy. 
We are to begin our difficult tasks in the 
blessed mood of finished achievement. We 
are to sing doxologies as we go forth to 



122 THE EAGLE LIFE 

battle. We are to give thanks for the bless- 
ings ^^we are about to receive," and the 
thanksgiving must be a vital part of our 
fighting before even the real struggle begins. 
I mean that battles must be won in our hearts 
before they are fought in the open field. 
Jeremiah must slay his fears before he can 
subdue priests and kings. He must believe 
in their overthrow before they can be over- 
thrown. He must expect it before it will 
happen. He must see victory on the w^ay, 
and he must sing the songs of victory because 
he sees his God. That was the way of Jesus, 
and it must be our way. Our Lord Jesus 
gave thanks for miracles before they hap- 
pened. ^^ Father, I thank Thee that Thou 
hast heard Me!'' When that word was 
spoken Lazarus was still in the tomb, but 
with the grace and thanksgiving upon His 
lips He commanded grim death to loose its 
bonds, and Lazarus came forth! Jesus be- 
lieved in the wakefulness of God, and He 
confidently assumed it at every turning of 
the way. 



XXXVI 

FIXEDNESS OF CHAKACTEK 

"I have made thee ... an iron pillar.'' 

Jeb. i. 18. 

That great, divine word was spoken to a 
young prophet who was timidly shrinking 
from his stern commission. The odds seemed 
all against him. Principalities and powers 
were ranked in fierce antagonism. The 
priesthood was his foe. He had not even the 
support of the people. ^^Ah, Lord God, I 
am a child !'^ He felt like a broken twig in 
the fierce current of a river in flood. He 
felt like a desert-reed in a tempest. And it 
was just in that season, when his heart trem- 
bled before a tremendous task, that the Lord 
spake to him and said, ^^Be not dismayed; I 
have made thee an iron pillar!" The young 
prophet was divinely equipped for his divine 
commission. He was to be matched with the 
hour. His mind was to be established in 
the truth of God. His heart was to be con- 

123 



124 THE EAGLE LIFE 

firmed in the purpose of God. His will was 
to be possessed by the holy strength of God. 
He was to confront all hostilities like an iron 
pillar — not breaking, not bending, not yield- 
ing — invincible, to the onslaught of the 
world, the flesh, and the devil. 

In all great crises these divinely-fashioned 
pillars are the salvation of the State. The 
crises are not always times of war. They 
may be times of luxury, and apathy, and 
ease. The grave dangers, maybe, abound in 
Lotus-land, in heavy and slumbrous after- 
noons. There are subtle perils on the En- 
chanted Ground as well as in Vanity Fair. 
Indeed, a warrior may fight his way through 
Vanity Fair and collapse on the Enchanted 
Ground. And so we need stalwart Great- 
hearts who are invincible in every place and 
season. We need men and women of abso- 
lutely settled and vital convictions, who are 
^^ rooted and grounded, '' as the Apostle Paul 
says in his agricultural-architectural figure 
— ^men and women who are able to stand 
against the enervating airs from the south 
and the fierce blasts from the icy north. It 
is the souls of this order, steady and deter- 



FIXEDNESS OF CHARACTER 125 

mined at all times, who are the pillars of a 
people's hopes. 

In his hero lecture on Cromwell, Thomas 
Carlyle has these words : ^^ Perhaps of all the 
persons in that anti-Puritan struggle, from 
first to last, the single indispensable one was 
Cromwell. To see, and dare, and decide, to 
be a fixed pillar in a welter of uncertainty : a 
king among men, whether they called him 
so or not.'' And that is the purposed office 
and distinction of every soldier of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and pre-eminently so in the 
times through which we are passing. We are 
to be as fixed pillars among folk who are 
shaking in uncertainty. We are to steady 
those who are trembling. We are to be 
strong enough for timid hearts to lean upon. 
And this glorious strength we are to receive 
from our Lord as the gift of His grace. He 
is the fashioner of this royal character, and 
in His hands the reed, which is shaken by 
the wind, is transformed into an iron pillar 
which cannot be moved. 



XXXVII 

THE MAKING OF HEROES 

"The people that do know their God shall be strong, 
and shall do exploits/' 

Dan. xi. 32. 

It is like a strong and noble tree, of which 
the roots are found in a certain knowledge, 
and the fruit in heroic deeds. Exploits are 
not manufactured goods. They are not the 
deliberate creation of set purpose. They 
are not works; they are fruits. They are 
not made ; they are grown. They are not the 
startling surprises of occasional ventures; 
they are the natural and spontaneous ex- 
pression of the habits of the soul. A true 
hero is always heroic. Sometimes his hero- 
ism is seen by the public, but he is still heroic 
when the audience has withdrawn. This 
kind of tree ^^ yields her fruit every month'' 
— ^that is to say, there is no season when its 
fruit cannot be found. 

If, therefore, a life is to abound in heroic 
deeds it must have the heroic nature. It 

126 



THE MAKING OF HEROES 127 

must ^^be strong'' if it is to ^^do exploits/' 
Every other kind of heroism is superficial, 
and it will pass with the occasion which ex- 
cited it. We want a heroism which is heroic 
in its own secret thoughts. We want heroes 
who slay dragons in private. We want the 
royal courage which strangles an unworthy 
impulse as soon as it is born. We want ex- 
ploits in sacrificial thinking, magnificent 
conquests of selfishness in the quiet courts 
of the soul. A real man must wrestle with 
lions and bears in the jungle of his own 
spirit, and there he must register a courage 
of which the world has no account. All of 
which means that a man must be a hero in 
the very pith and fibre of his being. It must 
be his nature to be heroic. 

And how can we deal with a man's nature 
excepting through his God? How can we 
make the tree good? The prophet's word 
gives us the eternal answer — if a man is to 
^^be strong" he must ^^know God." And 
that is not the shallow knowledge of recogni- 
tion, it is the vital knowledge of communion ; 
it is the partaking of the divine nature. It is 
the living fellowship which makes a man a 
branch on the living vine. The life-sap of 



128 THE EAGLE LIFE 

the tree of life pervades every fibre of his 
being. He lives ; yet not he ; Christ liveth in 
him. In such a life all the fruit shall be 
exploits, and the flavour of the heroic shall 
be in everything. 



XXXYIII 

IRREVERENT FEAR 

"I fear the Lord, the God of Heaven, which hath 
made the sea and the dry land." 

Jonah i. 9. 

That is a seemingly sane expression of a 
very healthy piety. Here is a man contem- 
plating the stormy heavens and the assem- 
bled wonders of the tempestuous seas. And 
his heart bows in reverence and in Godly 
fear. But is all this really happening ? Who 
is the man ? It is Jonah, and at the very mo- 
ment he is speaking he is in flight from his 
appointed task. He has been commissioned 
to go to Nineveh, and he is deliberately turn- 
ing his course to Tarshish. And he makes a 
profession of his religious devotion in the 
very season when he is abandoning his com- 
mission. Here, then, is a strange encounter. 
Here is piety and duty in conflict. Here is a 
song of loyalty wedded to an act of deser- 
tion. This man makes the ways of trespass 

129 



130 THE EAGLE LIFE 

resound with the notes of praise. This man 
fears the Lord and shirks his task. 

How does such a strange association come 
about ! What is the origin of this incongru- 
ous wedding ? Can there be such a mongrel 
as impious piety? Yes, I think there can. 
Can there be such a perversion as immoral 
religion? Yes, I think there can. Was 
Jonah genuine when he declared his fear of 
the Lord? Yes, I believe he was. How, 
then, does it come about that a man can be 
singing a psalm while he is on his way to 
Tarshish? I think this is the explanation. 
Jonah's religion was in the realm of feeling, 
it was not in the realm of action. It centred 
in the emotions and not in the will. It was a 
matter of sentiment and not of obedience. It 
was a question of ^ ^feeling nice" rather than 
of ^^ doing justly,'' and of ^^ walking humbly 
with thy God." And that is the strange di- 
vorce which anyone can successfully accom- 
plish in his own life. We can cultivate our 
emotions independently of our wills. Of 
course the emotions are counterfeit and de- 
lusive, but there they are, and it is the easiest 
thing in the world for us to assume that they 
are genuine, and so at length to believe in 



IRREVERENT FEAR 131 

their reality. There is nothing which is so 
cunningly deceptive as artificial emotion. 
We can generate any amount of it, and when 
we are under its sway we can believe we are 
having a really good time. The emotional 
world may be our religious world, and as 
long as our emotions are lively we can believe 
ourselves alive. 

And thus it comes about that we have 
indictments like this in the word of God. 
^^Ye have given your tears to the altar, and 
ye have married the daughter of a strange 
god." Yes, and their degradation was seen 
in this, that they were sincere in both. They 
gave their emotions to the Lord, and they 
gave their wills to a strange god. When the 
notorious Pigott, who forged the name of 
Parnell, the Irish leader, was examined after 
his suicide, it was found that he was wearing 
a crucifix next to his skin. He was a living 
lie and he was hugging a crucifix. The cru- 
cifix carried his emotions, the lie expressed 
his will. 

And thus it was with Jonah ; he feared the 
Lord and he fled to Tarshish. But what is 
this fear worth which shirks its appointed 
task? It is devoid of all saving salt, and it 



132 THE EAGLE LIFE 

adds itself to tlie forces of corruption. ^^The 
fear of the Lord is a fountain of life. '' How 
great is the contrast. One sort of fear is 
the ally of death, the other makes everything 
alive. One kills the sense of duty, the other 
quickens obligation and turns statues into 
songs. 



XXXIX 

LITTLE-MINDEDNESS 

'^God repented . . . But it displeased Jonah ex- 
ceedingly, and be was angry." 

Jonah iv. 1. 

That is a most extraordinary conjunction 
of circumstances. A great city had repented 
of its sin, and because of its repentance God 
had lifted the curse. The dark, menacing 
cloud had been rolled up like a garment, and 
the blue sky was unveiled, a radiant symbol 
of forgiveness, and hope, and peace. But 
here is a prophet who had predicted that 
the black cloud would break in terrors of 
tempest and overwhelming flood, and be- 
cause events had turned out otherwise, and 
black sky had been changed into blue, he was 
displeased exceedingly and he was angry. 
That is very startling, a man blazing in fury 
because God's hand had moved in pity and 
in grace! I should have expected that he 
would have lifted his heart in gladness, and 

133 



1S4 THE EAGLE LIFE 

that he would have sung as the lark sings 
when the tempest passes away. But, no, he 
was angry because God was merciful, and 
his anger is all the more bewildering because 
God had been merciful to him, and had 
offered him the open door of a second chance. 
How is it that some people are so much 
sterner than God ? How is it that they are 
so antagonistic to even a trembling sugges- 
tion that God's love may go out far beyond 
our dreams? In my early ministerial life, 
when I used to dare to speak about anything 
and everything, I once ventured to preach 
on the text, ^^And he went to his own place. '^ 
The reference is, of course, to Judas Iscariot. 
I cannot recall what I made of the solemn 
words, and I am not anxious to recall it. I 
certainly should hesitate to speak about it 
now. But I do remember one thing. I re- 
member that, in closing the sermon, I left 
^^our brother Judas" in the hands of God's 
wonderful mercy, and I quoted the familiar 
words of Tom Hood : 



"Owning his weakness, 
His evil behaviour, 
And leaving with meekness 
His sins to his Saviour." 



LITTLE-MINDEDNESS 135 

When I got back to my vestry a lady fol- 
lowed me storming with passion. She knew 
all about the fate of Judas. She could not 
have spoken with greater assurance if she 
had stood by the great White Throne and 
heard the words of final judgment. And 
what right had I, she said, to, etc., etc., etc., 
etc. She was ^^ displeased exceedingly.'^ I 
had rested my bewildered mind in the mar- 
vellous hostel of the divine mercy, and she 
was very angry. 

"The love of God is broader 

Than the measure of man's mind, 
And the heart of the Eternal 
Is most wonderfully kind/' 

But there are some people who seem to 
prefer the prison of God's law to the com- 
forting home of God's grace. Or shall I 
put it like this — they would fain imprison 
the grace of God in the fetters of His own 
law. They would silence the Father in the 
Judge. They seem to like to live near Sinai, 
with its thunderings and lightnings, its 
cloud and its tempest, rather than on the Hill 
of Beatitudes, with a sight of another hill 
called Calvary, a green hill just outside the 
city wall, where the dear Lord was crucified 



1S6 THE EAGLE LIFE 

Who died to save us all. They have chosen 
a very shaking and disturbing site for their 
spiritual home. I prefer a sunnier spot, 
where grace is abounding, and where there 
are resources of spiritual hope and comfort 
which are called "the unsearchable riches 
of Christ." Yes, I prefer to pitch my tent 
at a sheltered spot called Expectation Cor- 
ner, from whence I can look out upon the 
multitudinous mercies of the Lord, and there 
is more than enough in that outlook to fill 
my days with fruitful vision and my nights 
with happy dreams. And if I see the re- 
deeming pity of God resting upon anybody 
on whom there once seemed to rest dark 
menace and frown, I will certainly not be 
angry or displeased. Rather shall my mouth 
be filled with happy laughter, and I will re- 
joice with the Great Shepherd because he 
has found another of His sheep which was 
lost. 



XL 

WEEK-DAY HOLINESS 

"In that day shall there be upon the bells of the 
horses, -Holiness unto the Lord." 

Zech. xiv. 20. 

Not only shall church-bells pour forth their 
holy intimations, and their divine signifi- 
cance, but the bells upon the horses shall 
bear the same testimony in the centres of 
business and trade. These are holy bells 
ringing in the midst of common circum- 
stances. This is a very large and health- 
giving sense of consecration ; it not only per- 
vades the holy place in the temple, but it in- 
cludes the outer courts, and it sends forth its 
purifying energies into the bustling affairs 
of the street. We are prone to limit the 
holiness we seek to the floor and circum- 
stances of the sanctuary ; but here is a holi- 
ness which moves with the swift things of 
the thoroughfares and distinguishes the 
couriers of commerce. It is holiness amid 
the fast life of the ordinary world. 

137 



158 THE EAGLE LIFE 

Now holiness is always a very unimpres- 
sive weakling if it cannot face and endure 
the rigours and inclemencies of the street. 
It has the inevitable paleness of all cloistered 
virtue. It never gets beyond the wanness 
of a prison plant. It is an invalid which 
never goes forth on daring ventures. And 
it was in reference to this peril of spiritual 
invalidism that our Lord prayed we might 
have deliverance: ^^I pray not that Thou 
shouldest take them out of the world. ' ' That 
would mean an escape from hardness, and 
therefore the deprivation of hardihood. But 
our Lord purposes for His children spiritual 
lustiness. ^^ Endure hardness as a good sol- 
dier!" God's trees are able to stand in ex- 
posed places. They thrive in the blast. They 
reveal incomparable vigour in the streets 
of the city, where there are cross-currents, 
and where rough winds are blowing. All of 
which means that the holy glory of the divine 
communion will break into our most com- 
monplace circumstances, and colour and 
transfigure them. It expresses itself in the 
great cardinal virtue of justice, integrity, 
fair-play, magnanimity and wise compas- 
sion. It emerges in the pure and noble dig- 



WEEK-DAY HOLINESS 139 

nity of faithful words. It is revealed in all 
the varied forms of a strong and winsome 
fraternity. The divine holiness is nnveiled 
in all that is truly human. The bells upon 
the horses mingle harmoniously with the 
melody of the church bells. 

Now these bells upon the horses are very 
attractive heralds of the King. Many men 
and women, who are never arrested by the 
church bells, listen to the bells that ring 
through the busy streets of trade. They 
would not be impressed if they saw us look- 
ing very holy in church, but they are im- 
pressed when they find us scrupulously holy 
in our business. That kind of music makes 
very indifferent people stand, and listen, and 
talk. When I do a bit of business with a 
man, and I hear the bell-music of divine 
honour, sounding through the transaction, 
the strong music makes me think, and may 
very soon make me pray. And this great 
kind of consecrated life is possible because 
the Lord Jesus Christ is so greatly conse- 
crated to us — we are not limited in the Lord, 
and all things are possible in the inexhaus- 
tible powers of His grace. 



XLI 

ON THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF 

"Altlionnfli <lio iiix tree shall not blossom, neithor shall 
fruit be in the vine: the labour of tlic olive shall fail, 
and the fields shall yield no meat; the lloek shall be 
cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the 
stall, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the 
God of my salvation." 

IlAB. iii. 17-18. 

There is something very arresting in a 
man's words when he stands in a hard and 
difficult place. We hold our breath to catch 
the testimony of men who are marching 
through the darkness of the night. I can 
just remember my old minister, Dr. Enoch 
Mellor, in the day wlien he suffered the be- 
reavement of his wife. I was a very young 
lad, but I vividly remember with what im- 
patient eagerness I waited to learn what his 
text would be when he appeared again in the 
pulpit. And my spirit was awed when he 
read out the words, ^M was dumb, I opened 
not my mouth, for Tliou didst it. " There was 
a quiet serene courage as of a man whose 

140 



ON THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF 141 

confidence was sure, for he saw the hosts of 
the Lord upon the road. 

But a man's word and act are always 
arresting when he is brought to the edge 
of a cliff. When the material means of life 
begin to fail! When the fig-tree does not 
blossom, and there is no fruit in the vine. 
Or when we lose some faculty or power 
which has been a vital instrument in our 
work and existence. How do we adjust our- 
selves to the change, and what kind of wit- 
ness is there in our adjustment? Henry 
Fawcett lost the sight of both eyes when he 
was out shooting on the moors. He was a 
highly-gifted man, and he had brilliant poli- 
tical prospects, and it seemed as if they were 
all blotted out with the loss of his sight. But 
as soon as he was led back home he said to his 
staggering father, who had just heard the 
news, ^^ Father, it shall make no difference.'' 
When General Booth suffered a similar loss, 
and found himself blind in old age, he said 
to his son, ^^Bramwell, I have sought to serve 
the Lord with my sight, now I must serve 
Him with my blindness." These men, and 
countless others, have built altars out of ap- 



142 THE EAGLE LIFE 

parent ruins, and they dedicated themselves 
anew in the hour of their disaster. 

It is a wonderful thing to sound God's 
praises on an apparently broken instrument, 
and to compel the instrinnent to yield the 
sweetest music. God does not despise the 
broken reed, and we must not despise it, 
even though the breakage be in our own life. 
In the divine fellowship we can make our 
very breakages bear witness to His grace, 
and we can fetch melody out of our disasters. 
Men's words are always very vital when they 
breathe a quiet courage amid the smashing 
blows of calamity. ^^ Though He slay me 
yet will I trust in Him. ' ' That man * ' builds 
a heaven in hell's despair." 

God does not leave hard places without 
His own witness. God has wonderful manna 
for the desert. There is a mysterious bottle 
of water near Hagar as she wanders in the 
wilderness. There are ^^ sustaining herbs'^ 
on the ^^ cliff-edge of misery." The tree of 
life lifts itself in utterly unsuspected places, 
and it bears its fruit in every kind of season. 
Yes, God has food for courage. We are not 
left in loneliness and negligence when we 
come to the brink of terrible things. **I 



ON THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF 14S 

will never leave thee nor forsake thee/' 
The Lord of Gethsemane and Calvary will 
not desert us when we come to the brinks 
and precipices where death and destruction 
seem to make their home. '^I have com- 
manded the ravens to feed thee there.'' 
^^ Behold angels came and ministered unto 
Him." 



XLII 

BAFFLED TO FIGHT BETTER 

"When I fall I shall arise." 

Mic. ii. 8. 

One of the primary secrets of a victorious 
life is to learn how to take defeat. We are 
not to be too much surprised by it. Still less 
are we to be startled and unnerved by it. We 
are to be prepared for it, and we are to allow 
for it in our plan, and we are to regard it 
as an incident on the way to final triumph. 
Now no man is ever really defeated who re- 
fuses to accept defeat. A man refuses de- 
feat when in the very hour of apparent ad- 
versity he keeps his eyes glued on coming 
victory. The darkness never conquers so 
long as the soul is dreaming of the dawn. 
A man who can sing in the midnight begins 
to change his midnight into noon. ^^And 
at midnight Paul and Silas sang praises unto 
God, and the prisoners heard them.'' 

There is a great word in Ibsen's play, 
The Emperor Julian. It is spoken by the 

144 



BAFFLED TO FIGHT BETTER 145 

Christian, ApoUinaris. ^^ Verily I say unto 
you, so long as song rings out above our sor- 
rows, Satan shall never conquer.'' It is the 
very truth of holy writ. But if we are thus 
to make our sorrows subordinate to our 
songs, if we are to rise above them, if our 
very defeats are to become the starting 
points of victorious campaigns, our faith in 
the risen Lord must be so strong that our 
Gethsemane is flooded with the glory of 
Olivet, and even on our Calvary we can rise 
into ^^ heavenly places in Christ Jesus." 

In Christ Jesus we can extract virtue 
from our defeats. Out of the eater can come 
forth meat. We can feed our wills upon our 
disappointments. Angels ' food can be found 
on fields of apparent disaster. In this great 
way we can command stones to become bread, 
and we can emerge, like giants refreshed, 
from the wilderness and the solitary place. 

Our Lord is greatly honoured when we re- 
fuse defeat. No higher eulogy can the enemy 
pay to Christian souls than to say that "they 
know not when they are beaten." A song 
in the night is one of the most arresting 
witnesses to the uplifting power of redeem- 
ing grace. 



XLIII 

OR rather! 

"But now after that ye have known God, or rather 
are known of Grod." 

Gen. iv. 9. 

The latter way of stating the believer's 
wealth was to Paul far the more wonderful. 
It was a ' ' rather' ' that opened out vistas that 
were unutterable. Whenever, in any of his 
letters, he comes in sight of the glory his 
soul breaks forth in rapturous doxologj^ 
In a certain way Nathanael knew Jesus, but 
when he discovered that He was known of 
Jesus the fountains of a holier wonder began 
to flow. And so it was with Zaccheus ; he had 
a faint elementary knowledge of the Christ, 
but when it unexpectedly dawned upon him 
that he was known of Christ springs of joy 
welled forth which he had never experienced 
before. But in the loftier and still more sa- 
cred sense, a sense into which Nathanael and 
Zaccheus entered at a later day, the Apostle 

146 



OR RATHER! 147 

Paul gloried in consciousness that lie was 
known of the redeeming God, who had gone 
forth among the children of men in the sav- 
ing ministry of love and grace. 

For God's knowledge of Paul was not the 
mere knowledge of perception, or of dis- 
crimination, or of dry intelligence, but the 
knowledge of which love is the organ, the 
yearning, imparting, hallowing communion 
of the Father's heart. Perhaps we may get 
a glimpse of different kinds of knowledge 
by comparing the mere botanist's knowledge 
of flowers, and the gardener's knowledge, 
and the poet's and the lover's. I read a 
book on the ^^ Scenery of Switzerland"; it 
was by a geologist. And then I read Words- 
worth 's sonnets on the same scenery. Each 
revealed his own type of knowledge, but one 
entered into secrets of which the other did 
not dream. If all these ministries of knowl- 
edge could be combined in one searching, 
kindling, quickening light, a light that not 
only reveals but makes alive, a light that con- 
veys the mystery of life, like a mother's 
yearning knowledge over her child — such 
knowledge might give us some elementary in- 
sight into God's knowledge of the Apostle 



148 THE EAGLE LIFE 

Paul and of all who hide with him in the 
shadow of the Almighty. 

When, therefore, Paul speaks of God's 
knowledge of him he does not think of it as 
dazzling, heavenly rays falling upon him 
as the beams of a searchlight fall upon a 
cottage on some bleak and desolate shore. It 
is the knowledge of a communion — ^perhaps 
a road more than a light — a road filled mth 
divine commerce, even the marvellous riches 
of redeeming love. In that knowledge are 
combined the secrets of heavenly wisdom, the 
gifts of divine love, and the ministries of 
eternal grace. In that knowledge Paul 
found his rest, and his hope one day awaken- 
ing in the likeness of his Lord. 



XLIY 

SLOW WALKING 

"To walk and not faint/' 

ISA. xl. 31. 

That is the severe testing season, when our 
going slackens down to a slow walk. There 
is an exhilaration in movement when life 
speeds along, and its general interests are 
vivid, and we have congenial and kindling 
companionship. When the sleigh-horses are 
galloping, and we are just flying through the 
air, how the sleigh-bells ring out their merry 
peal ! Bees hum when they are on the wing ! 
And so it is in human life. It is easy to sing 
when we can mount up with wings as eagles. 
We come to the supreme test when the swift 
movement is over, when the merry pace is 
ended, when the stimulating fellowship is 
withdrawn, and we come to the slow walk, 
and something very vital seems to have been 
lost. It is a happy attainment to mount ud 

149 



150 THE EAGLE LIFE 

with wings as eagles ; it is a noble victory to 
walk and not to faint. 

Sometimes, even when we pass out of the 
brilliant hours, our busy pace is the soul's 
defence. Here is a woman nursing her loved 
one. She is going from morning to night. 
And then there comes a day when her loving 
service is no longer required. The sick one 
has slipped away from her and has recovered 
immortal health in the healing presence of 
the Lord. The swift, absorbing pace of the 
loving nurse is changed into an awfully slow 
walk when there seems nothing to do. We 
say one to another, ^^ There will be a reac- 
tion!'' or we whisper, ^^ There will be a col- 
lapse!" It is evidently a great testing time 
when the saving pace is almost halted, and 
the ministering servant comes to the hour of 
folded hands. Can she walk and not faint ? 

Here is a man who has been wakened to 
the knowledge of his Saviour. He wakens 
amid the excitement of a great revival. 
There is the exhilaration of a multitude. 
There is the stimulus of music whose volume 
is as the sound of many waters. He goes 
night after night, and the unusual and glo- 
rious pace of everything keeps his spirit on 



SLOW WALKING 151 

the run. Then the day comes when the phe- 
nomenal season is over. The extraordinary 
stimulants are withdrawn. ' ' The tumult and 
the shouting dies ; the captain and the kings 
depart.'' The surroundings become quite 
normal, and he settles down to the slow walk 
on the ordinary road. That is the testing 
time. Can we walk and not faint ? 

That man is not strong who needs the 
fierce pace, nor is he strong who only reveals 
his strength in fits of convulsion. He is 
the strong man who can walk slowly, and 
under a heavy weight, without staggering. 
And this triumph is the promised victoiy 
of grace, and the grace is surely given to 
those who ^^wait upon the Lord.'' Grace 
offers strength for the trudge on the long, 
grey road. Nay, grace offers more than 
strength, it offers Companionship. It is not 
satisfied with the gift of power; its gift is a 
Friend, and He brings His own cordials 
and balms to our sorrows, and His own bread 
to our hungry needs. ^^ They that wait upon 
the Lord shall walk and not faint." 



XLV 

THE EAGLE LIFE 

"They shall mount up with wings as eagles." 

ISA. xl. 31. 

I HAVE been reading a recently published 
Life of Roosevelt and I think that the out- 
standing sentence in the book is one spoken 
by Mrs. Roosevelt when the last of her four 
boys had enlisted in the service of his coun- 
try. Mr. Roosevelt was just a little daunted 
when the last, and youngest, left for the 
Front ; but Mrs. Roosevelt said to him, ^^ You 
must not bring up your children like eagles, 
and expect them to act like sparrows." It 
is a royal word : it links itself with some of 
the great sayings of the Roman mothers, 
which are still ringing through the years. 
Her boys had been created for great ven- 
tures, and when the call came they went forth 
as naturally as eagles when they leave their 
eerie for hazardous flights. 
And Mrs. Roosevelt's word unveils the 

152 



THE EAGLE LIFE 15^ 

true ideal of discipline and training. We are 
to rear our boys and girls in such largeness 
and quality of being that they will instinc- 
tively do the big thing because they are made 
and moulded in big ways. They are not to 
turn to the path of venture with trembling 
and reluctant choice, but because it is their 
nature to do it. They are eagle in spirit 
and they are to take to the vast ways as 
naturally as they breathe. 

And this, too, is the teaching of our Lord. 
In all His teaching the primary emphasis 
is on the state of being, and only secondarily 
upon the issues in conduct. Create an eagle, 
and you may look for eagle flights. Make 
the tree good and good fruit will appear in 
sure sequence. The teaching is expressed 
in many different ways. ^^Ye are of your 
father the devil." Christ lays his finger 
upon the very substance of their souls, the 
fibres of their nature, ^'the works of your 
father are absolutely sure" What is in will 
come out. We cannot weave fine robes from 
rotten fibre. We cannot have pure streams 
from foul springs. We cannot have exploits 
from cowards. The sparrow will not take 
the path of the eagle. 



154 THE EAGLE LIFE 

There are three verbs of very different 
degrees of value. There is the verb *Ho 
have.'' What a swaggering place it fills in 
the speech of men! It denominates a man's 
material possessions. And there is the verb 
''to do," a word of much more vital signifi- 
cance. It dominates a man's activity and 
services. Thirdly, there is the verb 'Ho be," 
which is incomparably more vital than the 
other two. It denominates the essential na- 
ture and character of a man, and its contents 
reveal his inherent work. Not in what we 
have, and in what we do, but in what we are 
is found the real clue to the value of our life. 
Are we sparrows or eagles? Who is the 
father of our spirits ? Are we partakers of 
the divine nature ? What am I, who am I ? a 
child of dust or a son of God? It is the 
glory of redeeming grace to change the char- 
acter and quality of our beings. We can be 
re-created in Christ Jesus. We can be en- 
dued with the powers of endless life. We 
can have the eagle spirit, and then we shall 
"mount up with wings as eagles, we shall 
run and not be weary : we shall walk and not 
faint." 



XLYI 

THE STRENGTH OF THE INSIGNIFICANT 

"Fear not, thou worm Jacob ... I will make thee a 
new sharp threshing instrument with teeth." 

IsA. iv. 15. 

It would be scarcely possible to find two 
images in more violent contrast than these. 
On the one hand is a worm, which a harrow 
can tear in pieces. And on the other hand 
is an instrument with teeth, a thing which 
can break other things in pieces. That is 
the contrast — a worm, soft, helpless and 
trodden on; and an instrument with teeth, 
firm, positive, impressive, ascendant! And 
the Lord God is to change the one into the 
other. The commanding word is spoken of 
a people, but the promise is equally and 
gloriously true as addressed to the individ- 
ual. Our God can endow the weakling with 
strength and character, by which he shall be 
able to write his services in deep, clear letters 
upon the life of his generation. He can 

155 



156 THE EAGLE LIFE 

transform the worm, and possess it with a 
force by which it shall leave its mark upon 
the fellowship of the race. 

The miracle has been witnessed ten thou- 
sand times. The life that appeared very- 
weak and helpless has been marvellously 
converted into impressive strength. I sup- 
pose that if we could trace the influence of 
the slave Onesimus we should see that it had 
made deep marks on the life of his master 
Philemon. Many a noble lineament in the 
character of Philemon was probably due to 
the strong but unconscious pressure of his 
now transformed and consecrated slave. The 
splendid spiritual loyalty of the servant 
etched many a fine line in the countenance of 
the saint. And if we knew everything I won- 
der what we should see of the influence of 
the transformed John Mark upon the 
Apostle Paul. Mark had been a weakling, 
so weak indeed that Paul wished to discard 
him as unfitted for the high honours and 
tremendous tasks of the missionary of the 
Cross. But the Lord laid an invigorating 
hold on the worm, John Mark, and I am 
wondering what distinguishing lines he en- 
graved upon the glorious character of the 



THE STRENGTH OF THE INSIGNIFICANT 157 

Apostle who was once willing to cast him 
away! 

This transforming power is, in Christ 
Jesus, the promised and privileged posses- 
sion of everybody. Thomas Carlyle wrote in 
one of his essays: ^^The genuine use of gun- 
powder I believe to be that it makes all men 
alike tall." Yes, gunpowder makes the 
little Japanese the height of the British 
grenadier ! And the marvellous power of the 
Holy Spirit, which transformed mere worms 
into magnificent instruments of grace, makes 
wonderful work of small and commonplace 
folk. ^^ Things that are not" are used to 
*^ bring to nought things that are!" Mere 
nothings are alive with omnipotence. The 
slenderest wire becomes the channel of the 
electric current. The humblest slave enters 
into the fellowship of Jesus Christ. ^^Ye 
shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is 
come upon you." That is the transforming 
Minister and He is every day engaged on 
His miraculous work. ^^I know not the 
man ! ' ' There 's the worm ! ' ' When they saw 
the boldness of Peter ! ' ' There 's the thresh- 
ing instrument with teeth! Pentecost had 
been! 



XLYII 

DUNGEONED HEARTS 

"Is it nothing to you, all that ye pass by?" 

Lam. i. 12. 

Great things were happening, but these 
folks seemed to know nothing about it. God 
was on the field in mighty movement, but 
these folks were indifferent. They seemed 
to be living in another world, and the other 
world was a self-created prison. There are 
dungeoned hearts. The dungeon is not built 
in a day, but every day we may add to the 
thickness of its walls and strengthen its 
power of imprisonment. The walls are built 
from the secretions of selfishness. A selfish 
soul creates its own bondage. I would say 
that it exudes a deposit which seals up its 
own sjnupathies and discernments. Its re- 
lationships are checked and contracted more 
and more, and its fine communions are de- 
stroyed. At last, all the active sensitive 
power of the life are shut up in a heart of 

158 



DUNGEONED HEARTS 159 

stone ; they have become petrified ; they are 
numb. They have no more feeling than 
statues, they do not hear the clamant and 
pitiful cries of the streets. 

Herbert Spencer devised a sort of stop- 
ping with which he filled his ears when he 
wished to shut himself away from a company 
and retire from any part in their conversa- 
tion. His biography offers abundant evi- 
dence that he was equally successful in more 
costly forms of self -imprisonment. There 
was a strange contraction of his sympathies, 
and his relationship with the pathetic needs 
of man was more fretful and irritable than 
helpful. In some directions he acquired a 
perilous benumbment. But then this is a 
peril which besets us all. We can dungeon 
our hearts until the great cries of the world 
cannot reach us. Men can be ^^made to 
stumble" and we bum not. Indeed, we do 
not hear the wails of men. Many a cry may 
come from many a Macedonia, but they beat 
against a stony heart when they ought to be 
received on sensitive heart-strings which 
thrill with eager and sympathetic response. 

In all such experiences the soul is suffering 
a deadly contraction. In dungeon lives the 



160 THE EAGLE LIFE 

soul is like a shrivelling kernel, becoming 
smaller and smaller in its hard encasement. 
And yet the supreme purpose of life is to 
grow a great soul, and to help other souls to 
grow theirs. Souls with large communings 
are like spacious harbours, offering hospi- 
table commerce to the laden liners which 
come from the near and distant parts of 
mankind. Our souls are purposed to have 
big relationships with God and man. Aye, 
with God ! But the dungeoned heart ceases 
to have connnunion with God. It does not 
heed. It does not hear. ' ' I stretched out my 
hands to you all the day long, and ye would 
not hear.'' We cannot selfishly build a wall 
of stone between us and our fellows and 
maintain a living communion with our God. 
Dying sympathies and vital devotions can- 
not dwell together in one heart. If our in- 
terest in humanity is shrinking, we cannot 
have a large and growing intimacy with God. 
The dungeoned heart shuts out both God 
and man. ^^If a man love not his brother 
whom he hath seen, how can he love God 
whom he hath not seen?'' 



XLYIII 

THE SOUND SLEEP OF THE COWAKD 

"He lay and was fast asleep." 

Jonah i. 5. 

^^He was fast asleep,'' And yet that man 
was in flight from a duty which had been 
laid upon him by the Lord. He was travel- 
ling in the way of rebellion. He had shaken 
himself free from life 's sanctities and he had 
turned his back upon the great white throne. 
And yet he could sleep, and his sleep was 
like infants' slumbers, soft and light. And 
he could do this while a tempest was shriek- 
ing across the deep. One might have ex- 
pected that he would never sleep a wink. 
Surely his conscience would be thundering 
in his soul, and his agitated being would give 
his body no rest. Does not the Divine Neme- 
sis chase a deserter, and does it not prevent 
him from pitching his tent in quiet places 
and lying down in innocent sleep ^ Can bad 
men sleep while dutiful men are awake at 

161 



162 THE EAGLE LIFE 

hazardous posts ? Yes, that seems to be the 
significance of the narrative. Jonah was a 
rebel, and yet he slept soundly in the unhal- 
lowed way of desertion. 

Our great dramatists have usually trou- 
bled the sleep of their villains. The ill deeds 
of the villains march with them into their 
tent and chamber and goad them into fearful 
dreams. It was so with the Duke of Clar- 
ence : ' ' Oh, I have passed a miserable night ! ' ' 
It was so with Richard III: ^'I did but 
dream ! O coward conscience, how thou dost 
afflict me!'' It was so with Lady Macbeth: 
^'Here's the smell of the blood still!'' And 
so it was with all Shakespeare's villains. 
Their sleep is troubled : the sword of judg- 
ment gleams through their dreams. They 
have followed evil ways of their own devis- 
ing, and they have lost the precious gift of 
restful sleep. 

And yet I think it is a worse penalty when 
we have sinned and retained the power of 
sleep, when we can lie down in undisturbed 
rest as though we had just returned from a 
healthy walk in paths of righteousness. 
There is something terrible in the judgment 
which rests upon a man when he can sin and 



THE SOUND SLEEP OF THE COWARD 163 

not be troubled, when be can leave bis ap- 
pointed post and go to sleep like one wbo bas 
spent a noble day in splendid vigilance. 
Jonab was a coward, and be slept soundly 
wbile better men were awake, 

Tbe most appalling judgment of sin bas 
been inflicted wben we become ^'past feel- 
ing.'' Every sin works like a drug, and 
continued sin tends to stupefaction. Tbe 
more we sin, tbe less we care. It is tbe 
subtlety of sin to create delusive conditions, 
and a very fatal part of tbe delusion is a 
deadly sense of contentment. We can lie 
and be comfortable. We can desert and sit 
bappily at tbe feast. But it is tbe comfort 
of tbe opium-eater, it is tbe sleep of tbe be- 
numbed, it is tbe restf ulness of deatb. Let us 
clearly understand tbe possibility tbat lies 
in our bands ; we can live wickedly into a de- 
based contentment; we can drug ourselves 
into apatby. But bow wretcbed is tbe con- 
tentment! How tragically small is our 
world ! Our comfort is drowsiness mistaken 
for bappiness : it is tbe foetid air of a tiny 
room mistaken for tbe vital air of tbe moun- 
tains. ^ ' Tbou say est, I am ricb, and knowest 



164 THE EAGLE LIFE 

not that thou art wretched and miserable anc 
poor and blind!'' 

There is no rest to compare with the rest 
that is found in the Lord. There is no peace 
like unto the peace of the Lord which passeth 
all understanding. There is no comfort 
which is fit to be named beside the consola- 
tions of the Spirit. There is no sleep like 
the sleep which God giveth to His beloved. 



THE END 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-? 111 



